Escape
by Whip-Owl
Summary: Pride is not having a good time after the Promised Day. So when his new 'tutor' turns out to be a time traveling alien, he of course goes with her. After all, it can't be worse than staying in Amestris, right? *Part One*
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

(Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or Doctor Who. I wrote this a little out of order, so update speed is going to vary. Also let's make one thing clear. I, someone whose better stories are short and humorous, am writing a long fic for two series generally hard to write for. So sorry about that. If you can do a better job write it yourself.)

Pride walked from the library towards home, slumped over slightly. To say he was unhappy would've been an understatement. He had to get back or Mrs. Bradley would be worried. Luckily the street between the library and their isolated home would mostly be empty. There was no reason he had to act anything other than unhappy.

"Selim! Hey Selim!"

Well so much for that idea. He knew that voice. Pride stopped and stood a little straighter. Then he turned around. A girl, around the same height as him, with straight brown hair and brown eyes was there. She was waving at him, running to catch up.

Pride quickly switched to a smile. "Hello Lucy."

He'd met her when he looked about two, physically. Mrs. Bradley and her parents had been worried about them being alone, and had brought them together to interact with people their own age. Well hilarious how that worked out.

"Wow. I haven't seen you in a while Selim," Lucy said, panting and pushing her hair away from her face.

Pride shrugged. "Well, I'm homeschooled now. It's much more interested than school."

And that, strangely, wasn't a lie.

"Well yeah. I got that," Lucy said, rolling her eyes. "But we could still spend time together," she persisted.

She looked at him about as pointedly as a ten-year-old could manage, which looked a fair amount like a pout. Her personality could be grating, unfortunately she was an odd one. Despite how much she struggled in school, she'd always been surprisingly perceptive. That was making it harder to shake her off. Who knew, maybe someday they'd reach the point she realized something was seriously off. His acting was normally fine, but holding it for ten years with no end in sight was a little much.

"Another time, okay?" Pride said. "I have to get back. My tutor's going to be home soon."

That was also true.

When Mrs. Bradley found out he remembered, and had never really forgotten, it had worried him. Admittedly, he'd over reacted a little. But some good had come out of it. One thing was that Ed no longer visited for a little check-up. Al still did. They visited sometimes to see if he remembered, which was a little silly because if Pride was still a threat there was nothing they could do about it. But if he suddenly didn't want to see either one of them it would be suspicious. Al was better than the person who'd done this to him.

The other good thing was he got to be homeschooled instead of being stuck in a school. He did have a real tutor, but she wasn't normal. She spent very little time teaching him things that were learned in schools, and usually just talked about random things like how cheese originated. He already knew how, but she was better than any other tutor he'd had. And he'd had several over the past 325 years, give or take.

Luckily, Lucy believed him. Since it was the truest thing he'd said all day, it would be too ironic if she hadn't. Lucy went back towards the library. Pride headed towards home. Mrs. Bradley knew he wasn't an ordinary ten-year-old, but that didn't stop her from worrying, and he did sort of need to keep living in her house. He also wanted to get back before his tutor, who only went by the Doctor for some reason.

* * *

"And that, is the history of how Amestris was formed," the Doctor said. "Which is, of course, complete nonsense."

"Wait, what?" Pride asked.

The statement didn't shake off his rock bottom boredom, but it was still a surprise. The Doctor had just finished giving the false, text book history of Amestris. There were people who questioned it of course, but they'd either been converted or killed back in the day, and teachers didn't usually bring up any ambiguity in the entire history of the country.

"Amestris, the alchemy capital of the world, just happens to be in the shape of a circle? I don't buy that. And if it was something neutral, or positive, like a symbol of what the country's about, it wouldn't be secret. Which means the reason is negative."

The Doctor shoved most of the stuff off the table, except a map, books and pencils thumping against the ground. Then she grabbed some tacks she'd knocked on the floor.

"Pencil, pencil. Where did the pencils go?"

"You knocked them off the table."

"Right!" The Doctor grabbed one as it rolled by. "Now, the parts of Amestris are very different in most ways, but if it's something negative, one thing this country always has is bloodshed. So, we start marking major events. . ."

The Doctor continued talking, listing off major bloodshed and a few other things that sounded like nonsense, but then again it seemed like she was talking to herself by now anyway.

"And that will show us . . . ta-da!" The Doctor stepped back, having drawn the transmutation circle for the Philosopher's Stone on the map. "A transmutation circle for the entire country!" She paused for a moment, taking a few breaths and smiling victoriously. Then she spoke, in a way that was clearly a complete after thought. "I should probably tell somebody."

(I wonder how many Doctor's people would guess if I left it ambiguous?)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

(So I'm going to try and post two chapters each week. That should give me a chance to work on earlier drafts. Might change things around later, depending on how it goes.)

Pride woke up with a quiet gasp, gripping the sheets. He sighed, loosening up a moment later. He'd had a nightmare. Homunculi barely had dreams much less nightmares, but well, given the circumstances, it wasn't really surprising. It happened a fair amount over the past ten years.

Pride rolled over, staring at the ceiling and squinting at the faint lines it. He didn't know the exact time, but it was clearly too early to be up, and he wasn't happy to find himself awake. With a now aging vessel, life should be passing really fast, but it didn't. It seemed to plod on forever. And it seemed he wasn't going back to sleep just yet.

He got up and went to his desk, shoving books about alchemy and human biology aside. He'd read about both of them before, but there was a difference between reading something that was a hypothetical for you, and actually needing the knowledge. He grabbed out a piece of paper and stared at it. Sighing, he rubbed his head. Ten years and he didn't have any decent plans to improve his situation. He was tired of acting. He was tired of actually getting sick, or injured, and needing to worry about things like food and sleep. He was tired of hearing that stupid heartbeat he shouldn't have. He was supposed to have his shadows, his real body, but he'd tried to use them multiple times over the years. It wasn't happening. Maybe he should've died like the others.

That was when he heard a voice. It sounded familiar.

_Is that . . . ? But why would she be here?_

Pride crept towards the window and tried to shove thoughts about death aside. He was Pride, and dying would be defeat. Again.

He peered out. His window faced the back of the house, so it was a little weird that was where the Doctor's voice was coming from. None the less, he was getting the perfect view of the cat and a figure next to it on the porch.

"Yes, I know it's late," the figure said. Yes, no doubt about it. She was a little hard to see from up here at night, but that was the Doctor. "But you know this is important. We couldn't very well have the humans in the house listening in, now could we?"

Pride twitched. He was not human, but he was in the house, and he was listening in, so funny story that.

"Now, have you found out anything about the Bulloobolous?" the Doctor asked. It was in that same encouraging voice she'd sometimes quiz Pride in. The cat meowed at her. "Oh. Thank you. Thank you so much for that."

Pride shook his head slightly. The Doctor was talking to a cat like she was having an actual conversation. Pride hoped something else was going on. It would be unfortunate if someone he'd started to enjoy spending time with turned out to be completely crazy.

"I should go now."

With that, the Doctor got up and crept off the porch, hunched over in an exaggerated way. This was ruined when she tripped. Then she got up and ran off. Pride squinted, but he couldn't see where she was going.

* * *

Mrs. Bradley was having a peaceful morning. She and Selim had eaten breakfast, and then she had taken the newspaper while he grabbed a book he'd gotten from the library, and the two read together.

Mrs. Bradley had just finished reading and started on the newspaper's crossword, when she heard a thud. She looked up. Selim had shut the book.

"Selim? Is everything alright?"

Selim nodded. "I just finished reading," he explained.

"Already?"

Selim smiled. It was small, and didn't reach his eyes. He hadn't become some unrepentant dangerous monster everyone thought he would when she found out he remembered, something even she had briefly worried about, but there had been a few changes. He made no effort to hide his intelligence, and all of his emotions had become less energetic, especially happiness. He was still faking that sometimes. Becoming more subdued was natural, if he was older than he appeared, but this was too much. It was honestly concerning, but Mrs. Bradley wasn't sure what she could do. She'd tried reading up on the subject, but what Selim was facing was a very unique circumstance, one she didn't know the full story on, and it wasn't like she could tell anyone.

Selim meanwhile, nodded. "Can I go get another one?"

Already? He'd gone to the library just yesterday.

Still, it wasn't like anything was happening today. It was the weekend, so the Doctor wouldn't be coming. Lucy wouldn't either, or even any of Mrs. Bradley's few friends, who might expect to see Selim. She shouldn't force him to stay in.

"Yes, you can go," Mrs. Bradley said. "Just hurry back soon, okay? Don't stop anywhere else."

"Of course not," Selim agreed. He slid out of his chair, grabbed the book, and headed for the door. "Don't worry. I'll be back soon."

* * *

Pride went to the library, returned his book, and checked out a new one without any incident. The librarian didn't bat an eye at the large alchemy book Pride had gotten. He was used to it by now.

It was as Pride was leaving that something unusual happened. He heard a buzzing sound towards the back of the building. He glanced around the corner.

The Doctor was there, waving around a stick with a glowing orange part on the end. Then she stared at the metal stem. She was muttering to herself again, something about those readings being bad, and they should be there, but where were they?

Pride forced his energy level up as he slipped back into his act. "Doctor!" He ran around the corner to join her. "Doctor it's so good to see you. What are you doing?"

"Selim!" The Doctor looked at him, smiling widely. "Not a good time. It's our day off, isn't it?"

Pride shot an annoyed look at the sky while she was distracted by her weird tool again.

"Did you talk to someone? About the transmutation circle?" he tried.

The Doctor blinked at him a few times. He couldn't quite read the expression on her face, but he didn't like it. Then she went back to smiling.

"Oh right. Yes. Of course. Problem's taken care of."

Well, that wasn't technically a lie, she was just very late. If someone had mentioned his past, it might explain her expression too.

The Doctor ran her tool along the railing, the back exit to the library.

"No, that's not it either," the Doctor said. She gave the tool a little shake. Then she turned to him. "You! Selim, you've been to the library a lot, right? Look around. Is there anything here that shouldn't be? That wasn't there before?"

Pride still wasn't sure what was going on, and made his confused look as pointed as he could, but he could humor her here. He looked around. The railing had always been there, as had the dumpster and the bin of boxes. There was a forest nearby, so the trees there made sense. Although with how much attention he paid them, a new one could probably just appear and he wouldn't notice. Then he spotted something odd, poking out around the corner.

"That wasn't there before," Pride said.

"What wasn't?" the Doctor asked.

Pride ignored her, partially because he wasn't sure yet. He ran to the corner of the building. He could see the whole thing now. According to the words on it, it was a police box, and it looked like there was a spot for a phone.

"This," Pride said, pointing up to it and looking pleased with himself.

"Not that," the Doctor said, sounding annoyed. "That's mine."

"Yours?" Pride asked, looking between the Doctor and the box.

"Yes. I live in it."

"But . . . you can't live in a box." Even 'Selim' wouldn't believe that one.

"Sure you can. I do. Don't worry. It's comfier on the inside. Now, I have to find the Bulloobolous. They can disguise themselves as objects, but not people. I have a reading. There's one in the area, but I can't find it."

She continued to wave her tool around sporadically.

So she was crazy. It was a good thing she wasn't looking, so he was free to make any expression he wanted. So much for someone he sort of enjoyed the company of. He should go now. Pride turned just in time to see the lamp they'd been standing next to turn into a puddle of dark liquid, bubbling and moving up like a fountain. It sort of looked like a creature covered in tar, trying to get into an upright position.

"A Bulloobolous!" the Doctor shouted. "Time to go!" The thing moved a bit closer to Pride, who was staring at it, mouth slightly open. The nonsense creature was real? "Come on Selim!"

The Doctor grabbed his arm and yanked him into the box.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(This story seems to have attracted some attention. So thank you so much. I hope you continue to enjoy it.)

So to sum up, the creatures were real, and the Doctor did live in a box.

The Doctor let go of Pride's wrist extremely quickly after they were inside.

"Whew. Next time I tell you to run, you should consider it," she said.

Pride had been dragged in, still facing the door. So he turned around to face the Doctor, and promptly forgot anything he'd been planning to say. Today was the day for surprises it seemed, because this was not a four walled box. This had three walls, and then opened up into a gigantic room. It was a little dark. There were formations on the sides that reminded him of glowing crystals, but there were obviously controls inside them, in the middle of the room. He could also see halls going off even further in the distance, but it had obviously been an ordinary sized box on the outside.

This was . . . well, not impossible. Just look at him and his siblings. Gluttony's stomach had gone on forever, in that is was another plane of reality. So maybe something like that was going on. But it wasn't something you just stumbled upon, and he was suddenly seriously doubting the Doctor was human.

Speaking of the Doctor, she stood near the controls, smiling, entirely too pleased with herself.

It was around then Pride realized he'd been quiet for a long time. _Don't drop your act yet, _Pride told himself. The Doctor was also clearly playing an act she hadn't completely dropped yet, and she'd given no hints she was suspicious of him. It would be stupid of Pride to give anything away if he didn't need to. _So, what's the most human thing someone could say in this situation? _"It's bigger on the inside."

"Yep," the Doctor agreed.

"That's so cool! How are you doing that?"

"Dimensional manipulation technology."

Yeah that sounded sort of like what he'd guessed. He faked a confused look.

"It's a long and complicated explanation," the Doctor said. "In the meantime, let's get away from the Bulloobolous."

She ran to the controls and began pushing buttons, seemingly at random. There was a whirring sound and a jolt. Pride stumbled slightly. He could feel something humming under his feet.

"We're moving?" he asked.

"Of course," the Doctor said. "My home moves me, not the other way around."

The answer was obvious, but she sure knew how to make it sound weird. His theory that she wasn't human spiked higher, and he remembered her talking last night. She hadn't wanted humans to overhear her. That wasn't something you usually said if you were human.

"This is so amazing," he said, looking around the room in awe. Admittedly, it was easier acting than usual. "But, everyone would say it's impossible. Are you human?"

"Nope," the Doctor confirmed.

When it became clear she wasn't going to elaborated, he added, "What are you?"

"I'm a Time Lord. Oh, you wouldn't have heard of me. I'm from space."

"From outer space? Like an alien?"

"Never liked that word. From where I'm standing, you're the alien. Anyway, I think we can get out."

The Doctor walked past him, opened the doors, and stepped out. Pride followed her, tentatively at first, and then he starred. It didn't last very long. He realized he'd been doing a lot of starring lately, and dialed it back.

They were definetly not at the library anymore. They were on a concrete platform, with a metal railing at the end. And beyond that was a large body of water, making waves against some rocks. While Amestris was land locked, Pride had done plenty of reading. That was the ocean. Also, it had been nearly midday when he left the library. The sun was either rising or setting here.

"Where are we?" Pride asked.

"The other side of the Earth." She smiled and spread her hands wide. She looked at him a little closer. "You alright?"

Pride had walked closer the railing, peering out over it. He shook his head slightly, trying to clear it. "Yes, I'm fine," he answered. "I've just never seen the ocean before." Or the other side of the world. He looked back behind the Doctor's home, getting a look at the town nearby.

"You've never seen an ocean?"

"Amestris is land locked," Pride said with a shrug.

"Never left Amestris? Oh, you are missing out."

When he still had his homunculus body, Pride might've disagreed. There might be some interesting places out there but, ignoring the fact he couldn't leave the country back then, why would he want to? Amestris had everything they wanted. It wouldn't be worth a trip away. Now? Well, anything was better than being trapped there forever.

There was a sound near them. He'd only heard it once, a few moments ago, but it was easy to place. That was the sound of something turning to liquid.

"Doctor. . ."

She seemed to have noticed, looking around. "There!" she shouted, pointing to a bench that was turning black and dripping. "Back inside the TARDIS!"

This time, Pride willingly ran after her as they dashed back inside the box.

"TARDIS?"

"My ship. Time and relative dimensions in space."

"And the Bulloobolous?"

"Not from this world. They seem to be invading."

"No, I meant how did it follow us?"

The Doctor shook her head. "It couldn't have followed us. The TARDIS is protected from intruders. We would've at least noticed. And it couldn't have beat us here, which it would've needed to do to disguise itself as a bench. No. There was one on there other side of the earth already."

The Doctor flung the door open. She pointed her tool outside and waved it around.

"Okay. No Bulloobolous here."

Pride followed her out. They seemed to be on a butte, with a few more going off in either direction. Below them was a jungle, fog rolling over part of it. Pride could hear primates in the trees and the bird song was unfamiliar. It seemed like they were in another thoroughly foreign location. Pride wasn't shocked at this point, but he still sat down, taking care to lean away from the cliff. It had quite the day.

_More like quite the five minuets._

He looked at the Doctor. She was scanning the rock formation and seemed like she was trying to scan the trees below. Pride hoped she didn't fall right off. He didn't particularly want to be stranded here.

"There are Bulloobolous on opposite ends of the planet, but not here. Why?" she asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but Pride shrugged and answered anyway. "There's something they want that's not here."

He and his siblings had never bothered much with places that didn't help them create the transmutation circle. Well, Greed did, but he was Greed.

The Doctor stared at him. For a moment he wondered if he'd let something slip he shouldn't have, but based off her stare, that didn't seem right.

"Selim that's genius! Come on. I have to test something."

Back into the box it seemed.

The two climbed in. The Doctor took off, then flung the doors open. They were in Xing. She waved her device around.

"Yes, definetly Bulloobolous here."

She ran back inside, took off again, and landed in the North Pole. The lights were shinning over head but he wasn't going to lean out too far. It was freezing. She did this a few more times, stopping at the edge of a tribe and in the middle of a desert. Then they stopped at Creta. It was nice to see new places, but it would be better if they stopped for more than five seconds. He was on a transport that was bigger on the inside with an alien, and he was still processing what to do with this information.

This timed seemed to be the last of their travels though. The Doctor flung the doors open and walked out with a huff. Pride quickly followed.

"Well that confirms it," the Doctor said. "The Bulloobolous are everywhere humans are, and nowhere they aren't."

"So . . . they're after humans?" Pride asked.

"Yes, but why? What could they possibly want?"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Pride didn't care much what the Bulloobolous wanted, but he started giving it some thought anyway, if only because it might be the easiest thing to think about from today.

The Doctor had essentially sent him to sit on a bench while she thought. He'd half dropped onto it. He looked around. The place was familiar, but only because it was built similarly to Amestrian streets. It was just a neighboring country after all. With an alien. While trying to figure out what another alien was up to.

It wasn't as if he and his siblings had never, in their many years of being alive, considered aliens. But it was inconsequential, so they didn't put much thought into it. At least he didn't. The humans certainly had. He glanced at the Doctor. He didn't think she or the Bulloobolous were what they had in mind.

Suddenly, a human near him doubled over and began making gurgling sounds, like water was coming up out of them. Pride turned towards him, and then did a double take. There was a liquid of some sort, but it wasn't water. That was the black liquid the Bulloobolous was made of.

"Doctor!" Pride called.

"Get back Selim!" the Doctor warned. "That's a Bulloobolous."

Pride mentally scoffed, that had been very obvious, even as he took a step back. "You said they couldn't pretend to be human."

"It's not," the Doctor said. "It's possessing one."

"And they can do that?" Pride asked.

The Doctor ignored him, she was coming to closer to the body, stepping between it and Pride. The human was now jerking, mouth bubbling.

"Stop! Stop it!" the Doctor shouted.

The Bulloobolous didn't listen. The body stilled. It stood up straight, if a little awkwardly, and stared blankly at the two of them.

"Why did you do that?" the Doctor asked.

The being didn't answer, just lifted a hand and started at it. Pride watched from behind the Doctor. The Bulloobolous didn't seem very good at emoting, at least not with a human body. The eyes were still mostly blank, and the rest of the body hadn't moved, but if Pride had to guess, he'd say the Bulloobolous was in awe, because it had a hand.

The Doctor stepped forward and grabbed the Bulloobolous' wrist, gripping it tightly. "Don't ignore me. You just killed that man, drowned him with your waters, so I think you should answer me now. If you've taken over the body, you have the vocal cords. Tell me why you killed him."

Pride hadn't actually seen the Doctor be angry before. She was right now, and it was odd, but it was just words, so he didn't expect the Bulloobolous to care. Then again, today was the day for surprises.

"We will take the bodies," the Bulloobolous said. His voice wasn't particularly clear, like his vocal cords were full of water.

_Actually that's probably literal._

"So, you took a human's body? Why?"

"There are many humans . . . and few of us. We can talk now. Affect things."

He picked up a rock. It was awkward, all his fingers moved at the same time and it took multiple tries to grasp the rock in his palm. But if he had been made of liquid before this, that made sense, even if it made him less intimidating.

"Right . . . if you wanted to become solid, and this was all you had to do, why haven't you before?" the Doctor asked.

"We . . . were not ready."

"Yeah you're going to have to be more specific."

"We were not ready."

The Bulloobolous sounded irritated now. He jerked out of the Doctor's grip, who looked at her own hand in surprise. Then the Bulloobolous reached out. Pride doubted that would accomplish much, in the back of his mind, but he automatically tried to send his shadows out anyway. That didn't work. Of course it wouldn't. He'd tried before. He'd even tried to add another soul to himself once, when he and Mrs. Bradley had visited a hospital and it had been inconspicuous. If it was possible, it wasn't that easy. He had no control of any shadows anymore, and trying to find any within his container would just remind him of how painfully human he'd been made. It made him more aware of a heart beating, or lungs expanding, or other feelings he tried to tune out.

With that going on, Pride froze for a second. The Bulloobolous, meanwhile, seemed to spray black water of his hand. It slammed into the Doctor who fell over and sputtered. The Bulloobolous turned to Pride. Time to switch to something he _could _do. Pride raised his hands, but paused before clapping them together. The Doctor wasn't exactly paying much attention, but she would certainly notice if he did circle-less alchemy. He wasn't going to do that unless he had to.

So Pride scrambled out of the way as the Bulloobolous raised his hand, and the Doctor stood back up.

"Selim!" To his surprise, she was smiling. "Come on! This way!"

Pride wasn't sure what the plan was, but he wasn't sticking around here. He ran after her as she ran into a little ravine, rocks on either side, a river in the center. Pride splashed into, water soaking through his shoes. They ran along for a while, long enough Pride started putting together a plan of his own. Then the Doctor extended her hand and banged it against a rock, which clanged.

The Doctor stopped so suddenly Pride almost ran into her. He could understand why. Rocks didn't clang.

The Doctor felt along the rock, only to stop and pull at it. She must've found some sort of indent. A thin metal door, painted and curved like the rocks of the ravine, came out. She smiled.

"Thought so. Brilliant." The two of them walked inside. "Oh. That's new."

Pride stopped and looked around, peering past the Doctor's side. The room they'd entered seemed more like a cave than an actual room. However, there was a device inside, at the end of the room. Pride wasn't entirely sure what it was. It looked like it was for storing water and pumping it around, but he was sure there was more to it than that.

"You didn't know what was in here?" Pride asked, closing the door. He could still see. There was still light coming from somewhere.

From the way she'd talked earlier, it sounded like she knew what they were looking for.

"Nope," the Doctor said. "Just seemed like a good place to hide. Now it seems like it's actually a bad place to hide. For us. For the Bulloobolous it seemed pretty good."

"What? Are we in danger?" If they were, now would be a good time to know.

"Hold on. I need to confirm my theory," the Doctor said.

She wasn't very good at watching kids apparently. Pride could take care of himself but she didn't know that.

She walked up to the water tank, tapped it, listened to it, and pointed her device at it. Then she did the thing where she looked like she was reading a result. Pride shook his head slightly and made a mental note to ask what that was later.

"Oh I thought so."

"What?" Pride asked.

It was starting to get a little frustrating that while he faked the tone, all the asking wasn't an act. He really didn't know. But he tried to shove the feeling down for now. It was better than the last ten years had been.

"This is a water augmentor," the Doctor said. "See, the Bulloobolous are from a different planet. Their water isn't exactly the same as this planet's water. This device augments it, makes it compatible. That must be what that Bulloobolous meant when he said they weren't ready."

"So this lets them possess people?" Pride asked. "Would you just need to destroy it?"

He didn't care about the humans, but after interacting with the Bulloobolous, and being in their secret cavern, it seemed pretty likely he and the Doctor would be targeted. He'd really rather not drown.

"Well yes, but we can't do that. If we destroy it, there's still a bunch of Bulloobolous hanging around the planet, and they could always build this again. No. We've got to do something a bit more permanent."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

It seemed, outside of her tutoring, the Doctor really didn't like to explain things. She immediately set to work after saying the needed something more permanent. And she had him help, but she didn't explain what they were doing. She mostly had him hold things and keep an eye out for Bulloobolous. That second one was no problem. He would've watched for them anyway.

"How long would it take them to rebuild this?" Pride asked.

"Don't know. Depends on how thoroughly we destroy it and if they have records. Could take years. Why?" She looked up at him briefly.

"Well, if it could take years, we'd be safe, right?"

"Maybe, but we know about this. Whole reason I came here was because I thought something was wrong. It's our job to help."

He could've argued. Technically, destroying the device was helping, if not permanently, but he wasn't going to push it with someone who'd figured the transmutation circle so quickly. Besides, the Doctor had set back to work after that.

"Alright, I think we're done," she said a few moments later. She stood up and wiped her hands against her pants, smiling. "Now we wait for a Bulloobolous to come." She spun around on the spot, searching for something. "Ah! We can hide behind the stalagmite. Wouldn't want them to know we're here right away, after all."

Pride followed the Doctor behind the stalagmite, squatting slightly so he wouldn't be seen. It wasn't exactly the biggest hiding place, the two right next to each other and peering out opposite sides. They sat in silence like that for a while.

Then he heard the sound of water, moving more cohesively than liquids usually did. A Bulloobolous puddle entered. It didn't even open the door. It just slipped through the cracks and moved towards the augmenter. It reached the device, only to go splashing back, swirling around like a little whirlpool.

"Surprise!" the Doctor shouted, jumping out from behind the stalagmite. Pride shifted slightly to watch her, but stayed where he was. The Bulloobolous was still writhing, but it seemed like most of the water turned, facing her. "I got you. See, you made that device to be compatible with earth's water, but I thought, it must be possible to reverse that. You are now as incompatible with the water on this planet as you could possibly be. It could kill you. And you know how much of this planet is water?" She paused. "About 70 percent." The Doctor leaned in. "You might want to run now."

So that's what the Doctor had been doing. That was, admittedly, clever. And it looked like she'd pulled it off successfully. The Bulloobolous was writhing. Then it moved away quickly. It seemed like it was actually running like the Doctor suggested.

The Doctor spun back towards him and smiled. "Well, that takes care of that."

"Are they really going to die?" Pride asked, stepping out.

There was a river right outside the only exit after all.

"I might have bluffed a little. They'd die with enough water, but the same's true for any of us. I just made the planet so unpleasant they won't want to stay here. They'll be fine, and they'll leave everyone alone now." There was a pause. "Well, I should get you back."

Then she started for the door.

Wait, what? "Back?" he asked, following her.

"Yes, we're still in another country. It would be a long train ride if I just left you here."

"What are going to do?"

"Oh, back in my box, to see the stars. Always more to see."

She wanted to take him back to his normal human house in Amestris? Meanwhile she was going to leave, go to an entirely different planet from the sound of it, and not come back? He might not know what to do in the long term, but in the short term he wasn't letting this just slip away.

"Can't I come with you?" he asked.

The Doctor stopped. She put her hands in her pockets and turned around, but seemed to dodge making eye contact, just a bit. "Think about what you're asking Selim. This was dangerous. It's going to be dangerous again."

Oh now she wanted to be responsible. Well, he could handle some danger. "I know," he said. "But I still want to come. I'll be really careful, and I'll do what you ask."

The Doctor actually laughed. "Oh that would be new." She still seemed uncertain, but she was making eye contact again, and it was a warm look. "If you really want to come, follow me."

She waded back into the water. Yes! It was time to get out of here. He smiled and splashed after her. When she turned around to keep an eye on him, he saw her smiling too.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The Doctor opened the TARDIS. Pride walked out, and stared.

They were on a wooden walkway, lined with buildings. That part looked normal. The same could not be said for the people. The most common ones seemed to have pink skin, or scales. At least one had wings. Maybe none of them were human. Even if some looked it, and that was a very small number from what Pride could see, he and the Doctor also looked human, and they certainly weren't.

Then above the buildings, in the sky, was the most pressing difference. The sky was some odd greenish blue that shouldn't be possible in Amestris. There was daylight, the sun's rays streaming down, but he could see three planets above them, extremely close to this one. They were huge, bigger than the sun though it was still bright out. If everyone wasn't so calm, he'd assume the planets were about to smash into each other.

"Amazing, isn't it?" the Doctor asked. Then she turned back towards him and frowned. "Or, is it too much. Sorry. I knew you hadn't left Amestris and this seemed like a good place to go, but-"

"It is!" Pride exclaimed quickly. "It's so cool!" He ran after her. "Where are we?"

"Ariecan," the Doctor said. "One of the only places planets are so close you can see them in broad daylight this. For part of the year anyway. Glad I got the time of year right. That could've been awkward. Now come on. They've got a pink ocean at the end of the walkway. You said you've never been to an ocean before. Let's correct that, shall we?"

Pride hurried after her. There were enough people around that it involved a lot of dodging, and it would be easy to get separated.

"You took me here to see an ocean?" he asked.

"Yeah. What's wrong with that?"

Pride glanced back up at the sky. _Well for one thing, your priorities are strange. _"Nothing. It's just really great to be here."

The Doctor smiled. "Good, I should hope so."

They walked further down the path. The buildings seemed mostly empty, with stands outside, lining the walkway, selling things. A lot of people would shout what they were selling. Apparently, even on a completely different planet full of aliens, you couldn't escape that part of human nature.

"Are we there yet?"

"Oh not even close," the Doctor answered.

"Couldn't we have parked closer then?"

"What? Bored already?"

"No, sorry."

The Doctor could've mentioned she'd parked far away to give him more chances to see the sights, but he really wasn't bored. This was amazing, should be impossible, but here he was on another planet. Not many people got this kind of chance, especially not people from Amestris. He briefly wondered if any of his siblings would've appreciated it. Lust might. Greed unfortunately would, but he was Greed. He'd talk about ruling the entire universe now, and disappear.

The Doctor walked up to a stand and smelled some round powdery things that might have been bath-bombs. She licked the plastic on a bowl, raised her finger like she was testing the wind, and smiled to herself.

Pride had no idea what she was doing, but honestly, he didn't care to find out.

"Memories! Who'd liked to get rid of some?!"

He froze, turning slowly towards the nearest stall. There was one of those pink people there, tall with black hair, her stall full of brightly colored vials. She was still speaking out to the potential buyers on the street. She probably hadn't even noticed him staring.

"We all have those embarrassing moments, don't we? Or painful ones we'd rather forget. Here's your chance, why not use it?"

"Selim? Are you okay?"

Pride hadn't even noticed the Doctor come up behind him, but he realized his face was probably losing some color, and his breaths had gotten a little shallower. He shouldn't have let that happen but, well, memories were about the only thing that made him still Pride, even if he only had one soul, and no shadows, and was doing his Selim act a lot more than he used to.

"That person is selling amnesia," he said quietly, pointing to the stall. "Isn't that bad?"

The Doctor frowned. "Yes, it is. Wait here a moment." She walked forward to the stall. Pride sort of wondered why he was waiting. They weren't exactly far away. "What do you think you're doing? Memories are important. They make a person who they are. You can't just go erasing them."

The woman looked surprised for a moment, maybe even a little worried, but it flickered out quickly. "Listen, I'm just trying to make a sale here. If you have a problem I'm not the one to take it up with. And I'm doing this responsibly. There's . . . loads of paperwork involved. If someone's mom died I can't just make them forget that happened, or that they ever had a mom. That wouldn't work out. But I can help ease the pain a bit, make them forget why they're so sad. Why shouldn't I?"

The woman's voice rotated between faux confidence, practically begging the Doctor to go away, and defensiveness that made Pride think she at least somewhat believed what she was saying.

The Doctor didn't. "You're not helping," she said. "That's just taking away part of people, and giving them a new fancy addiction. Come on Selim."

The Doctor turned back towards the walkway, not even sparing a glance to see if Pride was following.

He'd been planning to, of course, but things didn't always go as planned. He turned, took one step forward, and someone else slammed into him.

"Oh sorry," A voice started. Whoever it was, was young and male. "I-Hey you're human!"

Pride's eyes snapped open and he looked at who he'd bumped into. It was a boy, about Pride's height and supposed age, with brown hair and eyes. He didn't look alien.

"I'm not human," Pride said crossly.

"Oh." The boy looked at him stupidly for far too long before saying anything else. "Sorry. You look human."

It occurred to Pride, as they spoke, that he was from a completely different time and place, and would likely go off with the Doctor, never to see the boy again. In fact he could kill him if he needed to, it would just be completely pointless right now. The point was, he could be as honest as he wanted.

"Lots of people can look human," Pride pointed out. "It's a helpful trait, but it doesn't mean anything. I can prove it if you like."

"Okay."

His tone was almost nonexistent, maybe a little confused, but he didn't seem to be looking forward to it or anything.

Well, he'd agreed. Pride gestured for the boy to follow and walked towards a space between the buildings. It was mercifully empty.

"I'm Jake by the way," the boy introduced.

"Pride."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

Once they reached the alley, Pride clapped his hands together and pressed them to the ground.

Homunculi couldn't normally do alchemy, and there had been no reason to for most of his life. But when it became clear he couldn't use his shadows, he had to try. Not only had his first configuration worked, he realized he didn't need the circle at all. He knew how to transmute with a clap of his hands, the knowledge just sort of lodged in his head. Well, he had technically seen the Truth, even if it was to shove Mustang through the portal.

The shape he made with Jake could've been anything. He went with a flowing shape that was sort of based off his shadows, but it came out so vague it could've been waves. They were near an ocean after all. He wasn't sure if Jake would recognize this as alchemy, something humans could in fact do, but even if he did, Pride doubted he would know anything about circle-less alchemy.

"Woah," Jake breathed. "That is so cool! How did you do that?!"

"Alchemy," Pride answered honestly.

"I thought that was made up," Jake said. Pride frowned, but Jake carried on unperturbed. "Well, you are an alien. Maybe alchemy means something different to you. Wow. I've got to tell people alchemy is real."

Right. There was one flaw in his previous thinking, on how he could tell Jake the truth. While he'd never see the human again, he'd be seeing a lot of other people on this planet, and it would probably be better if word didn't spread.

"You could do that. But. . ." Pride paused and glanced around, as if checking for evesdroppers. He leaned in. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Oh. What is it?" Jake leaned in too, intrigued.

"I'm supposed to be a human named Selim. You're the only one who knows my real identity. You can keep that a secret, right?"

Children loved keeping secrets. From Jake's inhale and rapid nodding, that seemed true on a completely different planet as well. They weren't always good at keeping secrets, but it would do as Plan A.

"You can count on me. I won't call you be name at all. I'll just tell everyone an alien showed me alchemy."

That would do. Pride nodded.

"Hey." Jake snapped his fingers. "If you shared your secret, can I show you mine?"

Well it would mean being separated from the Doctor for even longer, but she had just been his ride here anyway. He shrugged.

"Come on!"

(Would now be a good time to mention I actually do have a plan for this fic? I didn't when I started the rough draft, but right now I've at least got an outline in my head.)


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"Those aren't supposed to be edible!"

"Well that explains a lot. I don't like them," the Doctor said, setting the spray bottle down.

The scaled alien in front of her put his head in his hands. "Why would you even eat hair spray anyway?"

"Don't know. Why would you sell it?" the Doctor asked. He didn't exactly have hair. She turned towards Selim to make a comment, only to see there was no Selim. "Selim? Hey Selim?" She looked down the walkway. It was full of people, and that would make it kind of hard to see him, but there were few kids and even fewer humans. She turned back to the salesman. "You didn't happen to see Selim did you? Little human kid with me. Black hair, sort of gray eyes?"

"I didn't see anyone with you," the salesman said, shaking his head.

The Doctor froze, the world blurring out for a moment. She'd done it again. She'd lost a companion. Already. So much for doing as she asked. It's not like companions didn't wander off, but Selim was a kid. Well, sort of. He thought he was. Probably. And Mrs. Bardley definetly thought so. She had to get him back safely, and he was gone. Already. He could get himself killed.

She felt someone tap her on the shoulder and turned around. It was the salesman.

"Ma'am? You alright?" he asked.

"Children," the Doctor said. "Is this why you always hold their hands?"

* * *

Jake led Pride to an abandoned building. Inside had a long table, with a metal surface, and medical equipment along the walls, but it was certainly not a doctor's office. It looked like the lab where the humans made Philosopher's Stones. Not exactly, obviously, but it was similar enough to put Pride on edge. This place might look abandoned, but it could still be very much in use.

He turned to Jake, but of course the human didn't seem to realize the potential danger. He walked straight across the room towards a metal cabinet, moving with a purpose. Pride sighed quietly and followed him, keeping his eyes and ears as alert as he could to anything else in the room.

Jake flung the cabinet open. Inside was a metal man. Pride frowned. Yes, the being was taller than a human, a little clunky looking, but it was the same general shape, only metal.

"Cool, right?" Jake asked. "I found it here years ago. No one else seems to know it's here."

"What is it?" Pride asked.

"Don't know," Jake answered. "But you want to know the crazy part? I think it's alive." Before Pride could comment on that, Jake yanked a stool over, climbed up, and shifted the plates on the head apart slightly. "You see that there? That's fleshy."

That was strange. Pride knocked against one of the legs, then clapped his hands together and tried transmuting it. Nothing. It must not be composed the way his first guess had been. That made sense, if more parts of it were biological under there.

"What are you doing?!"

Pride heard the adult voice behind them and spun around. Jake jumped, wobbling precariously on the stool.

There was a man there. One of the pink skinned people. He was glaring at them, but Pride could see the fear in his eyes. He was scared of something, and Pride doubted it was the two of them.

"You shouldn't be back here," the man said, striding closer.

"Should you?" Pride asked.

"Don't get smart with me." Pride was pretty sure he hadn't been. The man was just letting his emotions get to him. He picked Jake up with one arm, and started shepherding Pride away with the other. "It's seriously dangerous back here. That thing could still-"

The sound of two metal plates clanging back together came from behind them. All three of them turned around, slowly in the man's case. The metal man's head was back together, and the 'c' on its chest was glowing. Then it stepped out of the cabinet, clanking loudly. It turned towards them.

"You are not human," it said, obviously speaking to the pink adult.

He set Jake down and stepped in front of the two, hand moving towards them protectively, or maybe to push them back further.

"No, no I'm not," he agreed.

"If you are not human, you can not be upgraded."

"Good." The man shook his head. "I don't want to be upgraded. No human does either. Leave us alone."

"If you can not be upgraded, you will be deleted."

The metal man raised an arm and a burst of light, as well as a few sparks that reminded Pride of alchemy light, came out of it. He squinted. He saw the pink man drop to the ground. He'd been killed. The metal man then turned its attention to the terrified looking Jake.

"You can be upgraded."

"Wh-what does that mean?" Jake asked, taking a step back.

Pride slid back too, closer to the door. It wasn't like Jake or the metal man was paying attention to him.

The metal man did, however, take a step forward to stay near Jake. "You will become a cyberman."

"A-a what?" Jake asked, looking around.

If Jake was stalling, it wasn't going to work. The metal man might answer his questions, but only because he wasn't trying very hard to get away.

"We are cybermen." The metal man, cyberman, raised a hand towards itself. "We are improvements on humanity. You will be upgraded."

"How are you an improvement?"

The cyberman and Jake turned to him. Pride had, admittedly, just given away his chance to escape unnoticed, but it wasn't like he was going to ignore that statement.

"We are protected from death." Being made, at least partially, of metal probably did make them harder to kill, but saying they were protected from death in entirety was a little extreme. "We are not hindered by emotions."

"What?" Jake asked.

"Emotions get in the way of decision making. They are a weakness we have removed."

Jake gasped and asked in shock, "You don't have emotions?"

_That's what he just said. _

Pride tipped his head back, thinking of it. He wouldn't consider pride an emotion per say. The cyberman certainly still had it. He had thought a lot of emotions were useless, but the odds that being a cyberman was as perfect as this one seemed to think was slim.

Jake and the cyberman had still been talking. Jake waved a hand at Pride over something.

"He is not compatible," the cyberman said.

"See, I told you I wasn't human," Pride said. The cyberman had said only humans could be converted after all.

"Your age is incompatible. Your species is not."

Whatever expression Pride made, it must've been amusing. Jake snickered, despite the situation. Of course he wasn't thinking about it too hard. If he did, he'd realize they looked the same age, so if Jake was compatible, Pride should be as well.

"If you are incompatible, you will be deleted."

Time to go. Pride quickly clapped his hands together and put them on the ground, bringing up a wall between him and the cyberman. Well, Jake was on this side of the wall too. But that was just delaying the cyberman, and he couldn't risk trying to use transmutation on it directly.

Pride headed for a large table in the middle of the room, Jake following him. Pride flung one of the cabinets in the table open. He climbed in. Once Jake was also inside, he closed the door.

"Won't the cyberman know we're here?" Jake asked. "It's the most obvious hiding spot in the room."

It wasn't the most obvious spot in the room, that would be the cabinet the cyberman had been in. And that didn't matter anyway.

"We're not staying here," Pride said quietly.

He clapped his hands together again and created a hole in the cabinet, leading to the floor below. It would be a bit of a drop, but better than sticking around here.

Jake didn't seem to agree. He bit his lip, and trembled, looking down with worry in his eyes. Well if he wasn't going to jump, they were kind of in a hurry. Pride shoved him down. Then he swallowed and jumped after him, trying to relax. He knew tensing up would make it worse.

When he slammed into the ground, he was pretty sure he didn't break anything, but it certainly hurt, and all the air was knocked out of him.

"Are you okay?"

That was Jake's voice, though he couldn't see him yet. Pride tried to answer and just sort of wheezed. He saw Jake's hand reach down and wondered briefly how he was already fine. Pride got to his feet on his own.

"Where are we?" he asked.

He voice hadn't gone completely back to normal, but at least it had formed a proper question.

"The industrial section."

Yes, Pride could believe that. There was a fair amount of machinery down here, steam from it pouring out onto the walkway. He realized with a start he didn't know what all the technology was.

Well, maybe he could read up on it later if he was curious. The more important thing right now, was getting away. There were lots of people down here, and not great lighting, so it would be easy to escape notice if they got moving.

"Come on," Pride said, starting forward.

Jake followed him, but kept looking around and back uncertainly.

"What about everyone else?" he asked. "If the cyberman comes down here, isn't it going to try upgrading or killing people? We should warn them."

Pride slowed for a moment. So he was one of those humans. Well, now really wasn't a good time.

"We don't have the time," Pride explained. "If people don't believe us we'd waste time arguing, and I didn't reseal the hole, so the cyberman could come through any moment. You're the only human I see. What do you think will happen if it can still find you?"

"Oh."

Jake followed Pride after that. For a moment he looked put out, shoulders hunched and head down, then he went back to looking around. Pride found out why when they reached a door. Jake grabbed a red handle and pulled down. Pride had seen a handle like that before, but it was extremely uncommon in Amestris. He had just enough time to process that when an alarm went off.

"The fire alarm!" Jake shouted as people started scrambling for an exit. "Isn't it great? Now people will get out and it barely took anytime."

_And they'll crowd this door, and you've probably attracted the cyberman like a foghorn on a lighthouse._

Pride quickly used alchemy to create a small exit in the wall for them. No point trying to get out the door now.

Meanwhile, there was a flash of light upstairs. It seemed the cyberman had finally showed up.

(It's handy that the Doctor Who villains change from episode to episode. Is there an age cap for the cybermen? Who knows, but probably for some of them somewhere.)


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Through retracing her steps and asking around, the Doctor was able to find out where Selim went. Apparently, the last anyone had seen, another boy had been leading him to an abandoned building.

_Oh yes. Land on a new planet, with new species, and immediately go to an abandoned run-down building. That's safe._

She made a mental note to remind him to do what she asked, and kept going towards the building. The whole thing was exiting, but not an encouraging sight when it came to her companion being inside alone.

The door was locked. _Well I should think so. No point if it's an unlocked door, but it'll be easy enough to fix._

The Doctor pulled her sonic screwdriver out, and that was when an alarm went off directly below her. She looked down. All she saw was the walkway, of course. She looked at the people around her. There were a few concerned looks, but most people just kept going about their business. Well, the alarm was audible, but not very loud, especially for them probably.

The Doctor shoved her sonic back into her pocket and ran back into the street.

"Excuse me!" she shouted, calling out to the nearest person on the street. "Excuse me, what's the fastest way downstairs?"

"I wouldn't do that ma'am." Still weird to hear. "That's a fire alarm." Yes she gathered that. "It'll be fixed soon enough but-"

"No, I have to go down there. My friend is down there, and I can't leave him."

Possibly not her most convincing argument. The passerby scrunched up her face. But she told the Doctor where to find the nearest staircase.

"The lifts won't be going with the fire alarm going off," the woman explained, but the Doctor was already running off. She'd gathered that too.

She found the stairs easily, but there were already people there, coming up.

"Ex-excuse me. If I could just-sorry but this is important," the Doctor said, trying to shuffle through the crowd.

It wasn't really working. Maybe she'd have to find a less conventional way down.

The Doctor looked around. She'd made it into the stairwell, so she was below ground, the floor below now visible. Also visible were multiple cybermen. That wasn't good.

_Well, no more time to waste on the stairs._

The Doctor grabbed the railing and volted over it. That alarmed a few people passing by, but no time to mind them either. She had to stick this landing. There was a sheet, or maybe a banter, strung up across the room. Well, there were a few, but there was one almost directly below her. It was a little ways off from the ground, but closer to the floor than the ceiling. So the Doctor extended her legs and aimed for. Almost immediately, the banner ripped under her weight, but it did its job of slowing her down.

She crash landed and jumped back to her feet. She could see the cybermen. But there were people scrambling up the stairs, and she saw two kids, trying to get to the staircase by hiding in the steam. One of them was very familiar.

So, time for a distraction. She smiled. "Well, that was fun. Don't try it at home though."

She saw Selim pause in the steam, squinting towards her voice. If she could see that much of him, he wasn't doing a very good job hiding.

The nearest cyberman also stopped. "You are incompatible."

"Yeah. I get that a lot," the Doctor said. She didn't think they knew who she was yet. Or maybe they were a cybermen who had never heard of her. She hoped not. That could put a dent in things.

"If you can not be upgraded, you will be deleted," the cyberman said.

"I get that a lot too, from you lot." The cyberman started moving forward again. The Doctor took a few steps back and spoke faster. "You know why? You should really have figured it out by now. There aren't a lot of people who meet cybermen multiple times without dying, or being converted. I'm the Doctor."

That got them to pause.

The Doctor used the opportunity to get behind some metal before the cybermen started firing. She glanced across the walkway to where Selim and that other kid were. She waved them over.

Selim looked at her like she'd lost her mind. There was no reason for that. Getting to her would just take some creativity. They cybermen weren't even paying attention to them.

The Doctor dropped down under the walkway as the cybermen came closer, changing the view to the sight of their clanging metal boots, in the holes on the metal walkway.

"They couldn't do that before," Selim whispered.

The Doctor jumped and looked beside her. The two of them had joined up with her, but when? How had she missed that? They'd snuck up really quietly.

She refocused on Selim as he added, "They had to be closer to attack before."

"And there was only one of them!" the other boy pointed out.

"Yes well, they were probably still waking up then. They're stronger now," the Doctor explained.

"Do they ever . . . stop getting stronger?" Selim asked.

"No idea. It changes all the time. Now quiet. We're hiding." She was silent for a moment before looking at the other boy again. "Who are you?"

"Jake," he said shakily.

"Right."

Luckily, it seemed unlikely they'd been heard. The cybermen clanked, and so did the metal walkway. It was loud. The cybermen were splitting up. Some were looking for them. Some were rocketing up to the upper level. This wasn't good. She couldn't let them destroy everyone upstairs. And it wouldn't be great staying here either. If any of them noticed the trio, they could just fire through the grate.

"Come on," the Doctor said.

She led the other two deeper into the industrial section.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Pride followed the Doctor as they went further from their starting point. The equipment here seemed less safe, and it was getting darker. He quickly reminded himself the amount of light in a room no longer mattered, though it would be nice to see where he was going.

Besides, they were putting further distance between themselves and they cybermen. He wasn't as terrified as he tried to make himself appear, but it was common sense not to stick around.

"In here," the Doctor urged.

She was gesturing to what seemed like a very large bucket, possibly a very large smelting pot. Well, as long as the machinery wasn't running that would be fine. Pride climbed up the side and dropped in.

The other two quickly followed.

"What are those things?" Jake asked.

"They're cybermen."

Jake and Pride exchanged glances.

"Yeah they said that," Jake said. "But what does that mean?"

It was the Doctor's turn to sigh. Pride had to squint to get a good idea of what her face looked like, but she seemed to be staring dramatically into the distance.

"They were human once. They cybermen were created by dying humans, steadily replacing themselves with metal parts and stripping their emotions away until they became that. Metal people who just wanted to upgrade or delete other people. They think they're superior."

"Yeah, they said something about that too," Jake muttered. "It's not true, is it?"

"No, of course not," the Doctor said. "Emotions are what make life worth living. We wouldn't be able to appreciate this planet without them, for example. And we need the bad emotions too, for the good ones to mean anything. The fear we all feel right now, that's helping us stay alive." The Doctor smiled. Pride thought she was laying it on a little thick, but he got the idea. "Not to mention, we'd all be a monolith without them."

She might've kept going, but Jake kept casting worried glances at the wall, and he chose that moment to speak up. "I think-I think there's a cyberman coming."

They all grew quiet and listened. Sure enough, Pride could hear a faint clanging. For a while they just sat in silence, and the clanging stayed far away. It could almost be written off as something else. They were surrounded by machinery after all.

"Lifeforms detected."

The clanging came closer.

Jake started squirmed, moving away from the Doctor and Pride. It looked like he was going to jump out when a figure appeared at the top of the bucket. He screamed, but it wasn't a cyberman. Pride saw whoever it was throw something, and their movements were too smooth for a cyberman. Then they jumped in with the other three.

"Where am I?" the cyberman outside asked. "Where am I? The location is unclear."

So much for no emotions. That sure sounded confused.

Pride turned his attention to the person who had entered the bucket. She looked familiar.

They waited in silence as the confused cyberman grew quiet and started walking away. The new person covered Jake's mouth, to make sure he wasn't still screaming. They all relaxed as the danger passed. The person who'd joined them, a pink person, sighed in relief and slumped slightly, moving her hand away. Jake grabbed his knees, still shuddering.

"You're that person from earlier," the Doctor said. "The one who erases memories."

"That's right," the woman confirmed, breathing heavily. "Adata. I just erased the memories of that cyberman, so it would have no idea why it was down here."

Pride was surprised she didn't sound more satisfied. After all, the Doctor had been against the memory erasing, but it had just saved their lives.

"Well that'll last a little while, until it rejoins the others at least. But we should probably stop hiding in here now."

The group climbed out of the bucket. As they hit the floor, the Doctor pulled her sonic screwdriver out and pointed it up. The hall lit up with back-up red tinted lights.

"Where are we going now?" Pride asked.

"We're going to stop the cybermen," the Doctor said. "Well, I'm going to stop them. I can't turn away from this. But I can't force all of you to take that risk as well." She looked at them, waiting for their responses.

Jake looked afraid, but he was tensed up instead of trembling now. "I live here. I want to help too," he said.

Adata wasn't looking at any of them, her eyes drifting around desperately like she was hoping to find something more pressing in the hall. But she nodded, and didn't seem hesitant about it. Well, it looked like this was happening then. It would probably be safer with the Doctor than doing literally anything else anyway.

"I'll stay with you," Pride said.

The Doctor started forward, the rest following her. She'd said this was going to be dangerous. Apparently she hadn't been exaggerating. This first trip out was very similar to what had been happening on his own planet. Just how often did this happen?


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Do we have a plan?" Pride asked.

It seemed like they'd just been walking down the hall for a while, and the other two were still panicking. Adata seemed to be getting worse.

"Get back to the main floor," the Doctor said.

"That doesn't sound like a full plan," Pride pointed out.

True, the staircase the Doctor had come down on had been destroyed by cybermen, but there had to be more ways up. If you were feeling really adventurous, you could probably climb the machinery.

Adata shook her head, breath heavy. "We're never going to make it. We'll never get up there in time."

"What do mean?" Jake asked in clear confusion.

"It's happening again." Adata pulled at her hair. "The cybermen are here and they're going to kill everyone they can and turn the remaining humans into cybermen, and we won't be able to do anything because we're trapped down here."

"We have to do something!" Jake shouted. "My family is up there! They can't become cybermen!"

And he was starting to cry now.

Pride tried not to react. It was odd that neither he nor his siblings were the source of their hysteria, but it did not make it any less annoying.

"Hey, hey." The Doctor turned and walked over to the two of them, standing at a slightly slanted angle, presumably to talk to both of them even with the height difference. "We won't be too late, and your family won't die. We can fix this." The Doctor smiled and looked between the two of them, who while not currently crying, didn't look convinced. "Right. Of course, we can. Let's go. Quietly."

The Doctor walked a little further, then climbed over the railing and jumped in among the equipment. She walked, spinning a circle, staring at the ceiling.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Pride asked.

"I looked up the plans of this building."

"When did you do that?"

The Doctor apparently decided to ignore that. "There should be an emergency ramp right about. . ." The Doctor pulled a cord and a ladder fell down, like an entrance to an attic. She turned to them with a smile. "Here!"

The four scrambled up the ladder. Well, they started pretty fast at the bottom. The Doctor was the only one who kept the same pace all the way up. It was a long way to the ground floor.

Once on that floor, it was chaos. People were running and screaming. The cybermen were marching down the street and firing, seemingly indifferent to what they hit, if they hit anything alive at all.

"Oh God," Adata said, breathing heavily again. "This can't be happening again, but it is."

"Again," the Doctor said softly. She whirled around so she was in front of Adata. "You keep saying again. Why are you saying that? Have the cybermen been here before? It wouldn't make any sense for them to come here. There's barely any human . . . s. Oh."

It clicked for Pride around the same time as the Doctor. Apparently, Jake hadn't figured it out.

"What?" he asked.

"There used to be more humans," the Doctor said quietly. "They were turned into cybermen. And everyone forgot about it. Except, of course, the amnesia suppliers."

"I'm sorry," Adata said, taking a step back. "I'm so sorry. The cybermen were gone, but they weren't really dead, and so many humans were. It was chaos, everyone was convinced they were going to come back. So the government made us erase civilians' minds. There were still people guarding the cybermen. They shouldn't have woken up unless people had been snooping around where they weren't supposed to."

Jake glanced at Pride. He seemed a little guilty, but he was probably mostly worried Adata would realize they were the ones snooping around.

The Doctor, meanwhile, glared at Adata. Then she turned away, glancing at Jake and Pride for a moment. She was trying to figure something out.

"Yeah. Right. This'll come in handy actually. I didn't think you could effect people at such a scale, and I don't think you went to each individual person's house and erased their memories. So, how'd you do it?"

"The satellite tower," Adata said, pointing.

They all looked where she pointed. There was a metal tower that looked like it was in the middle of town, narrow, but towering over the other buildings.

"Brilliant. Let's go," the Doctor said. She took two steps and turned around, causing Jake to bump into her. "You have more of that amnesia spray, right?"

"Well yes, but-"

The Doctor started walking again. The others hurried after her.

"Life forms detected."

Everyone stopped moving. There was a cyberman nearby. They could see on the other side of the nearest building, through the window. Hopefully it hadn't noticed them yet.

The Doctor dropped down and did a sort of crab walk under the window. She probably didn't need to do so, but she was a little strange. Adata crawled. Jake and Pride were short enough they could just duck.

Then they turned the corner, and the cyberman was standing right there.

Jake screamed. The Doctor jumped back, and Pride quickly scrambled out of the direct line of fire.

"You will be deleted," the cyberman said.

"I don't think so!" Adata shouted, much to Pride's surprise.

She'd been panicking literally a second ago. Now she flung another flask down. This time red smoke started pouring from it.

"This way!" she shouted. "I know a more isolated route!"

She started to the right. She seemed more confident now that her secret was out in the air. The others quickly followed her. After all, the cyberman didn't seem to be forgetting anything. It was a different formula. They just had until the smoke cleared before it started after them again.

"That cyberman must've heard you!" the Doctor shouted. "See, this is why you should be quiet!"

[If I make it through this whole fic without messing up the Pride/Selim naming, it'll be amazing. I've been reluctant to leave many author's notes on this fic, but then I realized that's kind of silly, and people can skip the author's notes anyway. So, if you to know a bit more about the plan. You know how we've had the Amestris arc, and then this cyberman one? Yeah there are going to be 12. Of varying lengths, but when I said this fic was going to be long, I wasn't kidding. I'll probably take a break somewhere, but I'll make sure not to leave on a huge cliffhanger. In the meantime, I've made enough progress on the rough draft that I'm going to try posting 3 chapters a week. Also, I'm putting my author's notes in brackets now. So I can actually use parenthesis for their intended purpose.]


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"Well that's going to be a problem."

They'd gotten to the tower the way Adata had suggested. Apparently, she knew some sort of old subway tunnel route. It had cobwebs and dust. Clearly no one entered very often, but that meant there were no cybermen during their entire trip through it. There still weren't any cybermen, but the tower was a on a sort of concrete island there would be no jumping to. There was a bridge, but one end of it was on fire. With the cybermen shooting like they were blind that wasn't surprising, but it did make it harder to get to the across.

"Maybe we can go back," Adata suggested. "I think there's another way around."

A familiar clanging sound came from behind them.

"That won't work," Pride said.

"I think we noticed that," Jake told him.

"Come on," the Doctor said.

"What?" Adata demanded.

"Across the bridge then," the Doctor explained, unperturbed.

She ran across. The bridge crackled and flamed, wooden planks burning up. At least the wires connecting the planks weren't catching as easily. The Doctor reached the other end, gesturing for the others to follow.

"Go ahead," Adata urged the other two, fear obvious in her tone.

Jake wasn't moving, also reluctant. It wasn't like running across a burning bridge with a human body, complete with human failings, was an appealing idea. It was just better than standing around.

Pride ran across the bridge, zig zagging slightly as he tried to put his feet on the sturdiest looking spots. The bridge wobbled precariously, but held. Pride stopped as he felt solid ground under his feet and turned around.

"Go! Go!" Adata urged Jake.

Jake still seemed afraid, but he ran across the bridge. Well, he tried. About halfway across, one of the planks broke under his feet.

"No!"

Pride wasn't sure if it was Adata or the Doctor who yelled. After a moment he realized it must've been both. But Adata was the one who reached out, trying to grab Jake. She missed of course. It wasn't a terribly long bridge, but there was no way anyone's arms were long enough to reach someone in the middle. Jake wobbled in the air for a moment, arms flailing out, realization crossing his face, and then he was falling to his death.

The Doctor and Adata looked at each other for a moment. The bridge was burning. Another plank snapped under pressure and fell down the pit below.

Then the cyberman came into sight. Adata took a deep breath and flung a vial across the bridge. The Doctor caught it.

"The amnesia!" Adata explained.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

She was so quiet Pride wasn't sure how Adata heard, but she must've at least guessed, because she answered. "Just go! I have enough vials to maybe hold them off. I hope you have a very good plan."

"Come on Selim. We should hurry."

She spun around and started up the tower. Pride went after her, each step clanging as he put his foot on metal.

"Is there something you need me to do?" Pride called after her. "Is that why I'm coming with you?"

"No. I don't think so. But if you'd rather be down there, we need to have a talk," the Doctor answered.

Pride looked back down. Adata had thrown another smoking vial at the cyberman, but she wasn't running. Where would she go really? And how many of those vials could she have? Right now, it looked like she was just shouting at the cyberman.

The Doctor had a point. He knew who he'd rather stay with.

The two ran further up the stairs. It was no easy trip. The tower was tall and narrow, the two of them constantly turning to go up the next staircase. And he had to worry about breathing. He'd done work for Father, but it was important work. Not the running around in a frenzy they were doing now. And that was with a Philosopher's Stone. Pride gripped the railing and looked at the Doctor, a decent way ahead of him.

_Wrath only had one soul, and he could've beat all the cybermen. With one sword._

Gritting his teeth, Pride bounded after the Doctor.

As they got higher, it became easier to see what was going on down below. The streets were looking pretty empty now, but it was clear the cyberman had come through. There were holes in the buildings and dead aliens in the street. Two cybermen walked down the road, pulling a human with them.

Pride had seen plenty of one-sided battles before, occasionally taking part in them. As long as they were safe up here, he was fairly indifferent to both sides. And he was safe, probably.

"The cybermen, could they come after us up here?" Pride asked.

Those lungs should've still made speaking extremely unpleasant, but he'd barely noticed. Amazing what a distraction periling life-threatening situations could be.

"In theory, if they noticed us," the Doctor answered honestly. "But if they do, they'll probably think we're more work than we're worth until it's too late."

Well that was only somewhat comforting, but no time to worry about it now.

They reached the top of the tower, stepping out onto a metal platform. It was one of those grated floors with holes in the bottom, but built to support people standing on it. There was also a sort of dish at the top, with an empty nozzle beneath it.

"Ah ha!" The Doctor shouted, holding up the pink bottle Adata had given her. The top had a spiral. It could be twisted into the nozzle. "Self-explanatory really. But I need to tweak the formula. Hold this."

She held it out to Pride, who took it partially on reflex.

"What?!" Pride shouted. "Now? We're going to be killed."

They were very obvious targets up on this platform, and the cybermen could probably figure out something was up now.

"It won't do any good if I plug that in without changing the formula," the Doctor said, all the while pulling things out of the pack on her waist.

Pride shook his head slightly. She had some absurd things in there. Out of all the things he actually recognized, he saw snacks, a phone, and a slinky. And she shouldn't have space for all the things she was pulling out.

"Ah ha!" The Doctor pulled out a small orange vial.

She then took the pink flask out of Pride's hand and started combining the two. It was then one of the cybermen fired a shot up to them. It missed, but it shot through the floor, and rocked the tower slightly.

Pride wobbled, and fell through the hole. He grabbed the edge of the platform, sticking his fingers into the built-in gaps.

"Doctor!" he shouted.

"I know, I know. Hold on."

The Doctor shoved the flask into the nozzle.

"Is there a choice?" Pride pointed out.

His legs swung slightly in the open air. He dug his fingers in harder and looked down. He might be able to fall back onto the metal staircase. It would be painful, but better than the alternative. He glared down, trying to concentrate. If he swung himself forward he could make it. Then he'd just have to stop himself from rolling down.

The Doctor pressed a button. Pink gas began to spray out of the disc. Then she spun around and grabbed Pride by the wrist.

"See? You didn't think I'd let you fall, did you?"

"Uh. . ."

The Doctor pulled him up, and he let go of the floor. No point arguing then. They sat catching their breath for a moment.

"Well Selim, you know how I promised you'd see the ocean?"

It seemed kind of ridiculous now, but Pride nodded.

"Well, there you go."

The Doctor waved her hand vaguely. Pride looked off in the distance. As the pink fumes began to clear, a view appeared. Some of it he'd already seen. The greenish blue sky, and the planets. But Pride could see most of the city from up here, as well as the buildings ending, and the pink ocean beginning, waves lapping up against the land.

[Given his usual self awareness, I considered putting the Wrath realization later. But technically you could argue it took ten years to remember this, and the line was too good to pass up.]


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"I-I lived." Adata said as they came down to her.

The Doctor's slinky was just ahead of them. The Doctor had tipped it off the stairs before they started climbing down. Adata was out of flasks now, and looked a bit worse for wear, but she was still alive.

"You did," the Doctor agreed.

Adata looked at her. "Thank you. I don't know what you did, but it saved my life. And . . . I'm sorry. I'm going to retire from this whole . . . selling memories thing."

"Just don't forget your skills. You can be pretty handy in a crisis."

After that, the two of them and Adata parted ways. As they started walking down the street, there were still cybermen around, but they weren't doing anything. They just stood there, moving their heads in a way that seemed confused. They didn't attack Pride and the Doctor as they passed. More people began peeking out of buildings. Pride saw the human being dragged away earlier walking quickly down the street. Scared, but alive.

He was feeling a little shaken himself, but not because of the near death experience, or how much bigger the universe had gotten. No. He could handle that. Of course. The point was, Father's plan of destroying the country, that he worked on with his siblings for over 300 years had failed. Meanwhile he'd helped the Doctor save two separate planets in less than twelve hours, and both had succeeded. What the fuck was wrong with the world, worlds?

"What did you do?" Pride asked quietly.

The Doctor smiled, continuing to walk down the path towards the ocean. "I'm glad you asked. It's brilliant really. The cybermen always try to convert people. They're so certain it's something they have to do, and without emotions it's rather hard to appeal to them. So, I made them forget about that supposed need."

Pride stopped walking. "What?"

"I made them forget they wanted to convert anyone. I created the first group of cybermen that can get along with humans."

Pride did not like those implications. "But you said erasing people's memories was bad, and that it wouldn't really solve anything."

"I said if there was a reason for people to think those things, it wouldn't work. The vial could wear off, or they'd get those emotions back on their own because trying to remove needed emotions from yourself doesn't work. The cybermen don't need to believe they're so superior they have to convert humans. If their memories return, they'll have enough new ones they can come to a new conclusion."

She seemed very certain about that. Pride was less sure, but he definitely was going to keep his act up now. If she felt this way about the cybermen, who knew what she'd do about him. Losing his memories was still high up on his list of worst-case scenarios.

Well, maybe if she did find out he could run away. It hadn't exactly been hard to lose her when he wasn't even trying, after all.

* * *

Pride and the Doctor reached the beach. The Doctor got them dinner. Now that Pride thought about it, lunch hadn't happened today. He was supposed to eat when he got home, but he never had gotten home.

The Doctor spent a fair amount of time running around and talking, even while eating, but Pride didn't listen much. It had been a long day. He was going to eat and look out at the view. He wouldn't have long. It was late. It would be hard to see soon.

Eventually the Doctor didn't know what else to say, because she just shoved more food into her mouth. They finished their meals in relative silence. Then they headed back to the TARDIS. It was night by the time they reached it.

Pride looked up. The stars were still the ordinary white light in the sky, but obviously not the constellations from back home. He could still see one of the planets glowing faintly in the dark, and another with a bright red dust ring around it. That had definetly not been visible during the day.

The Doctor poked her head back out. "You coming?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." Pride nodded. "I've just never seen these stars."

The Doctor looked between Pride and the stars a few times. "Would you like me to teach you about them?"

Pride shrugged.

* * *

After star gazing, they went back into the TARDIS.

"How far back does this go?"

"What?" The Doctor looked up from the controls.

"The TARDIS. How far back does it go?"

Pride waved his hand towards the hall he'd been looking down. He'd noticed it was big before of course, but there was a different between this and big. This hall just seemed to stretch forever, with doors on either side, and it was just one hall. There were others leading out of the main room.

"It's as big as it needs to be," the Doctor said.

"That doesn't sound possible," Pride said.

"Well it is. The TARDIS is alive. It provides rooms as needed."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Slightly alive. The Doctor would word it like that. She had tried to explain it for a little while after that, before Pride had left to find a bathroom. It sounded impossible, but so did everything else that happened today. Also, there was a feeling of being watched, even alone in a room. He of all people knew not to ignore that.

And then, the first door he opened happened to lead to a bathroom, so that was some extreme luck to just shrug off.

Pride finished washing his hands, getting a brief glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, complete with the circle on his forehead, partially hidden by his hair, and the gray eyes. Did it have to change even his eyes?

Pride hurried out of the room.

* * *

The Doctor spun around the controls, taking them to their next destination. Well, the TARDIS was probably taking them to their next destination, but you never knew.

She watched the hall, waiting for Selim to come back. When she'd gone to someone about the transmutation circle, they'd already known, and taken care of it. That was unusual. She almost never found a problem someone had already solved.

They'd also told her who Selim was. Used to be. The Doctor wasn't sure. He'd been incompatible with the cybermen, but that didn't usually have anything to do with memories. Selim seemed like a normal human child. She was pretty sure. And even if he wasn't, wasn't it safer to have Pride with her here on the ship than wandering around Amestris?

_But would that be good for the universe?_

Selim came back into the room just as the TARDIS made it's landing sound. The Doctor opened the door. Wherever they were, there was a lot of snow out there.

"Right." The Doctor turned to Selim, who was peering over her shoulder. "Might want to grab some warm clothes then."

"I didn't bring any," Selim pointed out.

They hadn't exactly stopped back at his home after their first adventure, so he hadn't brought anything, but that wasn't a problem.

"I've got spare clothes. Not sure how much will be in your size, but one way to find out. Come on, I'll show you."

* * *

The Doctor led Pride to what seemed like essentially a big walk in closet, and left him to it. He walked along the clothes. She had been right. There were lots of clothes here, but not much in his size.

Eventually, he did manage to find some boots and a jacket. And there was something that felt warm against the back of his head. Pride turned around to see a bit of scarf dangled off a hanger, hitting him in the head. The rest was presumably hidden by a jacket, also on that hanger. Well, it wouldn't be his first choice, what with the bright stripes, but a scarf could come in handy, especially since his coat didn't have a hood.

He started pulling the scarf down.

_This thing just keeps going on doesn't it?_

By the time he reached the end, a massive scarf was pilled at his feet. This was just too long. He could wrap it around himself twenty times and there would still be plenty of scarf to trip on.

Well, he could solve that problem. Pride glanced around, making sure no one was there. Then he clapped his hands, and used alchemy to make a normal length scarf. Leaving the rest of it on the floor, Pride headed for the exit.

The Doctor was waiting by the main doors. She hadn't changed at all, except to add a much smaller scarf that didn't look like it was very warm. She suddenly looked scandalized when she saw him. Pride paused. Had he done something wrong?

"What have you don't to my scarf?" the Doctor asked.

Ah. "It was really long," Pride said.

"Yes, and now you've ruined it."

The Doctor walked around Pride, seemingly surveying the damage.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I'll fix it when we're done."

"I should hope so," the Doctor said, nodding. "You know, some of my previous selves didn't always like this scarf. Thought it was a mistake. But I don't know, I find it's rather charming." She smiled. Well that was a good sign, even if he wasn't entirely sure what she meant by previous selves. He wasn't going to ask. He already felt a headache. "I suppose we can head out now."

The two stepped out. Pride felt the snow crunch, giving way easily below him. He looked up. Flakes were falling from the sky.

The Doctor grinned, walking forward and spinning around slightly. "Brilliant."

Pride dropped down and put a hand against the ground. It felt like normal snow to him.

"There's a town on the other side of that hill," the Doctor said.

Pride looked up, squinting towards where the Doctor pointed. Yes, it looked like there was a hill there. With snow all around, it was doing a great job of looking flat.

"Let's go that way then," Pride suggested, smiling.

"If that's what you want," the Doctor sighed.

Then she started marching off through the snow. He ran after the Doctor. They reached the top of the hill. Pride frowned. There was a town down there, but something seemed wrong.

The Doctor hadn't seemed to notice yet. With a cheer, she leaned forward and rolled down the hill.

Well, he wasn't going to do that. Pride started walking down, only to slip, fall on his butt, and slide the rest of the way down.

The Doctor laughed, getting to her feet, and brushing some snow out of her hair. "That was fun. Let's go again."

"No thanks," Pride said irritably, brushing snow off his sleeve.

"Ah, no need to be grumpy."

There were plenty of reasons actually, but he was going to ignore her for the moment, getting back to his feet.

"Oh it's not supposed to be like that."

Pride looked up when the Doctor said that. Ah yes. From here he could see the problem. Everything was frozen in ice. And not just a thin sheet from melting water, it was more like someone had put the buildings in an ice cube tray.

[Chapter 13 was originally going to be longer. Too long. By the time I was finished editing it was really easy to cut it in half here.]


	14. Chapter 14

"Oh it's not supposed to be like that."

_No, you think? _Pride thought sarcastically. No wonder he'd slipped on the way down. It seemed it was also something with the Doctor.

He stood up, following her as she walked among the buildings. There were no roads visible, but judging by the straight rows of buildings on either side of them, with a wide space between, they were probably on a path.

"It's not a very big town," Pride pointed out.

It was small enough they were going to run out of path really soon. In fact, just as they were reaching the end, someone else came around the corner. The Doctor stepped back, and that was probably a good call. By this point, there were about five people around the corner.

The person in front was an older man, hair going white. He was taller than the Doctor, but not by much. He backed up slightly, but seemed more upset than surprised about the situation.

"What are you people doing here?" he demanded.

"I don't know," the Doctor said.

_Neither do I._

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor continued.

The man seemed insulted by the question. "I am Milan Snokax. I own this town. I funded it, founded it, and got these researches to keep it running." He waved his hand at the other four. "Speaking of, why isn't it running?"

"I don't know," one of the men answered. He was probably the tallest of the group, kind of lanky, with orange hair and freckles. "Ice isn't supposed to do this."

He waved his hand at the building.

"Of course it's not," Milan said. "That's why I asked." Seemed the typical human reaction wash happening. Running around like chickens with their heads cut off. "Anyone have something useful to say?"

"I'm still trying to find out if there are people in those buildings," the other man said. He was short, kind of fat, with black hair and a beard.

The other two were women. One seemed human, with short brown hair, light skin, and gray eyes. The other was obviously not. Her skin was light blue. It was very pale, but not so much you could miss it. And her hair and eyes were purple, though Pride wasn't sure that was normal hair. It looked . . . harder than hair was supposed to be.

"Still not hearing anything useful," Milan said.

"Uh . . . I've got something," the alien said, looking at a device in her hands. All the researched seemed to have one. "I don't know what's causing the ice growth, but I know it's not done."

"What does that mean?" Milan asked.

The other woman screamed and jumped to the side, the red head grabbing her and pulling her away when her foot snagged on something. As her foot lifted higher, everyone could see the ice follow for a moment, before curling in on itself, making what looked like an upside-down icicle.

"It tried to grab me," the woman said.

There was more crunching beneath them. Pride made a startled noise when he felt something against his foot and stepped in place, trying to make sure ice wasn't forming over him.

The Doctor jumped to the side as more icicles came up around her.

"Well don't just stand around!" she said. "We have to get to high ground."

"The research center!" the bearded man shouted. "We can go to the research center."

The group began to run, Milan taking the lead as they plowed through the snow, flakes kicking up everywhere. Pride turned around, looking back the way they came. Ice was still sprouting out, but it was growing so slowly. They probably didn't even need to run.

And it didn't look like they were running towards anything either. When Pride faced forward again it seemed like they were just running out into a vast expanse of snow.

"This way!" the bearded man shouted, pointing to the right.

"I know where to go," Milan said.

"Yes, I was telling the strangers."

Pride squinted towards where he'd pointed. It was another nearly impossible to see hill. Well, considering how steep it was, it was more like a cliff. They spun around it. There, under a ledge, was what looked liked a small wooden shack. Well, it was two stories tall and clearly had multiple rooms, but it looked run down.

Pride hesitated for a moment, eye lids falling half way down and feeling heavy. Then he felt something cold and wet against his ankle, and ran in with the rest.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

On the plus side, the building was better on the inside. The furniture was basic. There was a card table with fold up chairs off to the side. But the room was warm, and there was a control panel with screens at the front of the room that showed the frozen town. The walls on the inside were also white, and didn't seem to be made of wood, different from the outer walls.

The red head sighed and dropped into a chair, setting his bag on the floor with a thunk, and leaning back with his eyes closed.

The human woman opened her coat and dropped her hood.

"Okay!" Introduction time," the Doctor said, clapping her hands together. "I'm the Doctor, that's Selim. He's Milo Snorax."

"No I'm not."

Maybe not, but Pride was going to call him that now.

"So, who are you four?"

They all looked a little surprised at that.

"You actually care?" the human woman asked.

"Of course, she does," the alien said, striding forward. "Most people do. I'm Aqua. That's Celina, that's Mike, and the guy who looks like he's about to die is Oliver."

From his chair, Oliver opened his eyes long enough to glare, then closed them again.

"As you can see, he doesn't take stress very well."

The Doctor nodded. "Aqua. And you're an eraline, aren't you?"

Now Aqua looked surprised. "Yes," she said, seemingly just saying so out of reflex. "Not many people . . . know that."

The Doctor smiled and turned back to Pride. "Eraline are an amphibia species from a planet called Rooden. Usually, very intelligent."

"Usually?"

"Well I didn't want to generalize."

"You can generalize all you want when there's only one of us. I do happen to be intelligent, yes."

Pride took a moment to have a very unimpressed look. It wasn't like they were paying attention. Then he looked at Aqua. She did look kind of like an amphibian now that the Doctor mentioned in, skin shinier and looking softer than human skin. But, "If you're an amphibian, how do you last in the cold?"

"Oh right." The Doctor turned back to Aqua. "Sorry, I was getting to that."

Aqua waved a hand dismissively. Apparently that was far less important than the question of intelligence. "It's fine. I've come to expect misunderstandings from humans. I am an amphibian in that it's the closest description they have. But I'm not from Earth, and ergo not an amphibian in the exact same sense. The rules are a bit different. I do need moisture, but that's not really a problem here." She smiled.

Her tone managed to sound almost patient, but that just made it feel more condescending. She was certainly talking down to him.

"She means-" the Doctor said.

"I understand," Pride hastily interrupted. Aqua was an amphibian the same way Envy was a slug. The Doctor was looking at him skeptically, so he insisted. "I do."

"Great, we've got two more egos," Oliver muttered.

Before Pride could ask what he meant, it seemed Milan had gotten tired of just watching.

"Well this is all fascinating," he said. "But could someone tell me what happened to my town?"

"Way ahead of you."

Everyone turned. Mike was sitting on the controls, currently pushing buttons that made the view of the town disappear, and some sort of static replace it.

"What are you doing?" Milan asked.

Pride watched as Mike swallowed the annoyance he clearly felt. "Well, I wanted to make myself useful. As you can see, there are plenty of life forms still on the planet, but we're the only humanoids."

There was the sound of cracking above them. Celina gasped and looked up.

"The ice is still coming!" she shouted.

Pride looked up. Sure enough, ice was starting to form on the ceiling, just along the corners where it would melt slightly and regrow, like it was struggling to get inside.

"Well, while you've been looking at lifeforms, I've been studying the actual ice," Aqua said. No doubt about it, Pride didn't like her. She pushed Mike's wheeled chair to the side slightly and pressed a few more buttons. "This is ice is slightly alive, but not enough to be malicious. For something like this, on this scale, there has to be an external factor, like putting fertilizer on a plant."

"That helps plants grow. It doesn't make them go at extreme speeds and kill people," Mike said.

"Well. . ." the Doctor muttered.

So the Doctor knew fertilizer that turned plants into fast growing killers? Pride's eyes felt heavy again.

No one else seemed to notice though. Aqua let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Yes, I said 'like' Mike. Please try to learn similies."

Mike looked somewhat affronted. He opened his mouth.

"Excuse me," Oliver said.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten he was there. Pride had too. There were six people in the room other than him, he wasn't keeping track of them all. But now they all turned to Oliver. In the silence, they could hear the ice fighting for ground on the ceiling.

"If the ice needs to be controlled, and we're the only people here, then doesn't that mean one of the people in this building is trying to kill us?" Oliver asked.

Everyone exchanged nervous glances.

"M-maybe someone found a way to hide," Celina guessed.

Mike shook his head. "Not from my scanners. I counted. Everyone humanoid on the planet is right here, in this room."

So, someone in the room was trying to kill them. Lovely.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

"Kick them out!" Milan shouted, pointing at Pride and the Doctor.

"What?" Pride exclaimed.

"Sir, we can't just kick them out into the snow," Celina objected. "They'll die."

"And if they do, we'll be safe," Milan argued. "This project has been going off without a hitch from the start. Then today, when they show up, things start going wrong. And someone in this building has to be responsible. Ergo, it's those two."

Ah yes, that was how it would look from the outside. Funny, the one time he hadn't done something was the time someone was suspicious.

"Even the kid?" Aqua asked skeptically.

And there it was. Rolling with it, Pride grabbed the Doctor's jacket and stepped behind her.

"That's cold," Mike said.

"I was thinking it's super unlikely a kid could be pull this off, but that too," Aqua said.

"And what about this Doctor woman? You telling me she's innocent? And they're together."

Well Pride still hadn't thought of how to defend themselves, but he didn't need to. Luckily, humans were great at turning on each other.

"You really seem to want us gone," Pride pointed out, making his tone fearful. "How do we know it wasn't you?"

"Why would I sabotage my own project?" Milan asked.

He shrugged. "Project's no longer profitable?"

Oliver raised an eyebrow, but it was Mike who responded. "Oh it is."

"Enough!" Celina shouted. They all jumped. She was loud, and screechy. "No, we don't know who did this, but we can't go kicking people out because they're suspicious. It's . . . inhumane."

Aqua coughed pointedly.

"Sorry. You know what I meant." She fixed the rest with a glare. "If you need a better reason, that's probably playing right into their hands." Celina took a step forward, and then another, getting into Milan's face despite the height difference. "I'm not letting you shoot yourself in the foot because you don't know who's done this." She tilted her head and smiled sickeningly sweet. "Sir." Then she turned and addressed the group as a whole. "Now, who's up for lunch?"

Pride's eyes widened slightly and he turned to the Doctor.

'Lunch?' he mouthed.

The Doctor shrugged. 'Oops.'

Whatever time it was, that was a big oops. They'd just eaten dinner. But Pride wasn't going to say anything. That would draw attention to him. Everyone had just stopped talking about kicking them out. That was a little weird, but Pride would take it.

_If I kill you all I'll get the person behind this. I should slice you into pieces. Oh wait, _he thought, feeling a little annoyed.

Celina actually picked him up and plopped him at the card table. That didn't help with the mood. The rest of the group gathered around as well, except Milan. He took his lunch upstairs.

"Got to eat in his fancy room," Aqua said.

Some of the others laughed.

"I don't get it," Pride said. He had a pretty good feeling he did, actually, but it would be nice to get some confirmation and he had an act to keep up.

"Milan likes to think he's better than us," Mike explained. "Because it was his idea and he has all the money. But that's all he has, or he wouldn't need to hire us."

"Heck, he's too stupid to realize why he hired us," Aqua said. "Otherwise, he'd stop telling us what to do."

The two laughed about that for a moment. They'd occasionally keep talking, but it was no longer about anything important. They talked about life at home. Celina asked Oliver how his siblings were doing. Then people slowly trickled away. Celina went off to the bathroom. Aqua went to take inventory of their stuff. Mike didn't say what he was doing. He just headed into the semi-connected main room.

"That's not suspicious at all," Oliver muttered.

"I can go keep an eye on him," the Doctor said.

She didn't really give him time to answer before leaving the room.

Pride glanced at Oliver. Just the two of them, then. Oliver didn't seem to be paying attention to him. He was finishing his lunch, and then staring at the mess in his bowl. Pride didn't understand how that could be remotely interesting. But if he wasn't paying attention to Pride, he didn't think he was a threat.

"You don't think it's us, do you?" Pride asked.

"Well, I don't think it's you specifically. Though you are up to something." Pride waited. Oliver sighed and elaborated. "The project's no longer profitable? Not many kids think of that. Seems to me, your intelligence flops around when it's convenient."

Pride slowly finished his own food. He'd taken a while, having just had dinner. So Oliver had noticed something was off. When the Promised Day was still a long way off Pride had messed with humans before. He was pretty sure all his siblings had, seeing how off they could act before someone noticed. Oliver had certainly made that jump quickly.

But he hadn't been very specific, and while Pride hated playing dumb, he wasn't going to give Oliver any more information either. So he, mostly, sidestepped the comment entirely, going back to the original topic.

"I didn't do anything to the ice. If you don't think it's me, what about the Doctor? It's not her either."

"I don't know who it is," Oliver admitted. He sighed and leaned back. "The thing about it is, I'm living with three geniuses, and the man who controls four geniuses. Everyone here has the ability and the entitlement to do something like this."

"Entitlement? Is that why you talked about egos before?"

"Now your getting it," Oliver said with a smile. It quickly faded as he propped his head up with an arm. "Everyone's good at something different, but we're all very good at what we do. I could make it a game. I quote arrogant statements, ask who said them, and people could easily get it wrong. Everyone here has a high opinion of themselves."

Yes, humans commonly were proud. He'd used it against them before. After all, they had far less reason too than he did.

Pride frowned. "You're here," he pointed out.

"I never said I was the exception to the rule, now did I? At least I'm self-aware."

Before they could say anything more on that subject, there was a cheer from the other room. Sounded like Mike.

Oliver sighed. "Well, I suppose we should go see what he's discovered."

The two of them walked into the other room. Mike was sitting at the large controls against the wall, the Doctor hovering over him.

"What did you do?" Oliver asked.

"The most useful thing all day," Mike said. Oliver cast a look at Pride, as if to say 'I told you so'. "Whoever was controlling the ice is most likely doing it through one of these." He held up one of the scanning devices. "They already controlled ice to a point, to protect the citizens against it. But, it's all relayed through these controls. And I've locked these controls. No one can make the ice move."

"Couldn't they override your lock?" the Doctor asked.

"Technology is my specialty. Until the day is over, this is unbreakable. Then, if we haven't sorted this out by then, I can set it on another time lock."

"Unbreakable, huh?"

The Doctor pulled out her sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the controls. While the technology was frankly unfamiliar, Pride was pretty sure the Doctor breaking an unbreakable lock would just make them look more suspicious. Luckily, it didn't come up. The Doctor put her screwdriver back.

"That is unbreakable," she agreed.

Really? But the Doctor's screwdriver had worked on everything she'd tried before.

Then there was a scream from above them.

"Celina!" Oliver shouted.

The group ran up the stairs. Milan came out of a room upstairs, and Aqua came in a moment later, clothes covered in snow.

Celina stood by the entrance to the bathroom, body completely iced over.

[I'd like to thank the people still reading. This story idea was very . . . specific, so I'm glad some people are enjoying it.]


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

"Well it's not Celina," Pride said.

"It was obvious it wasn't Celina," Oliver said. He was gripping the doorway and turned to the group with a rather dangerous glare. "She was better than all of you. She wouldn't have done this. Now, how did it happen? You said that lock was unbreakable!"

"I still say it's one of them," Milan said, pointing to the Doctor and Pride. "They wouldn't have to go through our controls."

"It's Mike," Aqua argued. "He set the lock. He could give himself a work around."

Pride was starting to get a headache, and it was getting harder to focus. What was wrong? He'd certainly put up with this kind of thing before. He'd helped start these arguments.

"I did not!" Mike shouted. "And all of us were by the controls." He waved a hand at the Doctor, Pride, and Oliver. "If any of us had done something, the others would've noticed."

"Alright. Everyone, just calm down," the Doctor said.

She put her hands up slightly in a gesture for everyone to relax. Pride got the feeling she was going to say more, but Milan didn't give her the chance.

"Shut up," he said. "I am in charge here, and I am saying there is absolutely no reason to be calm. You're probably the one causing this. We're not going to listen to you, you listen to me."

Pride rubbed his head. Milan reminded him of the many puffed up Generals in Amestris. And he did not like that.

"Oh? And do you have a plan? You just make these four do all the work," Pride said, waving his hand at the scientists. "Maybe you should shut up and let the Doctor do _her_ work."

"If I'm not listening to her, I'm sure not listening to a kid having a temper tantrum."

Mike put a hand over Milan's mouth, shutting him up. It was a good thing too. Things would not have gone well from there.

Mike turned to the Doctor. "Did you have some sort of plan?" he asked patiently.

She smiled. "Thank you. Mike said any remotes controlling the snow had to be relayed through the main controls down there. Is that true? Are there any controls other than ones down there, and your small remote ones?"

The scientists busied themselves, trying to think of an answer. Controlling snow still didn't make any sense to Pride. At least, not remotely, with no help from alchemy.

Oliver snapped his fingers. "Milan's controls! He has some upstairs. And if he's the boss they're bound to be more powerful, or separate all together."

"So maybe it's Milan who-" Mike started.

"Not now," the Doctor said. "We have to get to those controls."

Oliver turned and moved down the hall first, followed by Pride and the Doctor. Milan was giving Mike a hard time for covering his mouth, so they were going slower. Not that it was a particularly long trip from the bathroom to Milan's room. It seemed to take up about half the space on the second floor. Oliver and Pride made it inside. Almost immediately after, the door swung shut.

"What?" Pride asked quietly.

He reached for the handle, but Oliver pulled him back.

"Wait. Look!"

Ice was forming over the door. It would be impossible to grab without getting caught in that. But it couldn't have closed the door, could it?

"Hey! We're trapped!" Oliver called out.

"Yes . . . we can tell from this side," the Doctor said.

It must've been a good door. Despite standing so close to it, the Doctor's voice was muffled.

"There's nothing we can do from this side!" Mike shouted. "Go lock the controls yourself."

There were muffled voices on the other side of the door, something about if there was another way in. Well that would be grand but it wasn't a great time to rely on that. Also, Oliver had turned back towards the controls, and Pride was paying attention to that.

It wasn't exactly a large room, but enough Oliver still had to take a few steps. He'd made it about two steps before Pride saw ice shards bursting out of the ground towards them. The stretch of ice was a little long to dodge and it was moving towards them fast. So Pride clapped his hands together, thought of the transmutation circle for water, and put a hand on the ice. This was either going to end wonderfully or with a giant hole in his hand. But if he didn't try he'd end up stabbed someplace worse, and if it didn't work at least Oliver should be able to reach the controls before Pride was turned into an ice cube.

Amazingly, it worked. The ice melted, splashing to the ground around them. He hadn't been sure the Amestris circle would work on slightly alive ice, on a different planet. But if it did that made everything much easier.

Then Oliver ruined the mood. "What the hell was that?"

[You have no idea how much I want to just post every chapter I have sometimes. But then we'd all be stuck waiting awkwardly for me to finish.]


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Pride looked at Oliver. He looked a little scared, which was the norm, but also angry. That he was less familiar dealing with. And he wasn't quite sure why Oliver was angry.

"What was that?" Oliver asked tightly.

"Alchemy."

"And why didn't you use it before?! You could've gotten us out of here. Celina could've lived!"

Ah.

Oliver stepped closer, waving his hands around. Looking at him crossly, Pride stepped to the side. Ice was still creeping around the room. If he, even accidently, pushed Pride he'd probably slip and fall on ice he'd rather avoid.

"There are rules to alchemy that makes this method less than full proof," Pride said. "And I wasn't sure it would work. It was only worth the risk now with you so near the controls."

"Well now you know it works, so free us. Let our friends in."

"Calm down. Why don't you just use the controls?"

And preferably soon.

"You-" Oliver stopped, cutting himself off. "Why wouldn't you free us? Even if the ice stops, we still need someone to open the door." It seemed like a sort of rhetorical question. Oliver wasn't expecting Pride to answer, because he was going to answer himself. "The Doctor doesn't know, does she? She thinks you're a normal kid, and normal kids don't know alchemy, do they?"

"Why would I hide something like that from the Doctor?"

"Don't know. But I can prove it. Doctor! Did you know-!"

Oliver planned to call his bluff by telling the Doctor right now? And he thought Pride had too much ego. Why did he think that would work? Pride was certainly not going to let that happen, and Oliver was too hung up on their argument to have proper situational awareness.

Pride shoved him as hard as he could. Admittedly that wasn't very, but it didn't need to be. They were in a room with ice on the floor, and Oliver hadn't been expecting it. With a yelp, he slipped and fell, his head making a cracking noise. He was still alive enough to look shocked, but ice wrapped around his mouth before he could say anything else. It was such a human way to kill someone, but at least he'd shut up.

"Oliver? Selim? What's going on?!" the Doctor shouted from the other side of the door.

"Oliver fell into the ice!" Pride called back. "I think he's dead!"

He put some effort into sounding distressed. Luckily it wasn't too hard. He was still in danger himself after all.

"Never mind that!" Milan shouted. "Kid! You have to turn off the ice!"

Well he had a point there. Pride ran over to the controls, dodging slick spots on the floor. The controls were a mess. It was just a bunch of unlabeled button and dials. There was a screen above, but it was off.

"Oh yeah? And how do I do that?!"

Mike tried to answer, but it sounded like gibberish. The technology was well above the Amestrian level. And it was admittedly a little hard to make out his words through the door.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Pride shouted, grabbing his head and shaking it.

"You're making it too complicated!" the Doctor said, telling Mike off.

She then tried to relay directions to him, but he tuned her out. There had to be a better way to do this. He spun around. There were still some clean dry spots on the floor. He could try using alchemy to open a hole and jump through, or maybe just break the ground entirely. He could probably do that without making it obvious alchemy had happened.

Pride clapped his hands together and jumped off the chair, pressing his palms onto the floor. Only nothing happened. Right. The floor was probably made of something different than at home. Was he going to have to use alchemy on the door after all? He'd sort of been avoiding that, but it was going to be better than any alternatives at this rate.

He tried to move, to stand up, only he couldn't. One of his feet was stuck in place, and the other slipped out from under him. Right. He'd been watching where his hands went, not his feet. He face planted, both hands flying forward, one getting swallowed by ice. That was going to make it hard to clap. He scrambled to his feet as best he could, but he couldn't get all the way up, and it was continuing to grow up his arm. It was slower than it had been with Oliver for some reason, but that wasn't comforting.

The Doctor meanwhile, was still calling out to him.

"Doctor! I'm stuck!" Pride shouted. "It's the ice!"

He jerked his hand, even as the rational part of his brain told him he was being stupid. He couldn't break out of solid ice with only human strength. But the rational side of him was in the back of his mind and going further by the moment. He was being frozen. His arm was frigid and he couldn't feel his hand at all. He was tired, and couldn't think, and he was pretty sure his breathing was getting too heavy.

"Doctor please! Do something, I don't want to die!"

His vision was going dark around the edges. Was this seriously how he was going to die? He had to . . . he had to do something. His eyes roved around the room. He should . . . he could. . .


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

The Doctor called out urgently to Selim. It was obvious something was wrong, even before he told her the ice had got him. At that point, she turned around. She was wasting time shouting at the door. There had to be something better she could do.

And it turned out, there was. Turning around, she realized someone was conspicuously missing. She slipped past Mike and Milan, and ran down the stairs. Down in the main room, Aqua was sitting by the controls, staring intently at the device in her hands. She hadn't even noticed the Doctor come in.

"I suppose I should've known it was you," the Doctor sighed.

Aqua looked up, surprise briefly flickering across her face before she settled into a more confident anger.

"Maybe you should've, but you didn't." Aqua got up. "I sure hope you didn't suspect Mr. Snokax, but you always took his side, so maybe not."

"Snooze . . . is that what this is about?" the Doctor asked, feeling her temper rise.

"Of course it was about Mr. Snokax. He uses all his money to create fake power, to boss superior people around. Do you really think we'd all just sit back and take it. You should know. You clearly don't let anyone tell you what to do. But you sure let him walk over you, and the rest of us."

"Don't try to make yourself sound noble. People are dead now."

"Yes I know. That's the point. If the town was iced over while it was empty that would've been a little embarrassing for Mr. Snokax, but he could've just pinned it on us doing our jobs wrong. It gets iced over while people are living there, because he was so confident it was safe? That's a big scandal for him."

"I'm warning you," the Doctor said tensely. "Give up now. I'm not letting you kill my friend."

"Oh so that's why you suddenly care so much." Aqua laughed. "Don't act like you cared before. You haven't done anything this whole time! You act like you know what you're doing, and then just let this keep happening!" She waved her free hand at the ice in the corners of the room. "I'm not even going to kill the brat. I. Have. Standards."

She clapped her hands on 'have' for emphasis. In doing so, she set her device down. The Doctor was hoping it would get to this point. That she'd either get angry or confident enough the Doctor would get a chance at the device. This was not how she expected it to happen, but no time to question that now. She grabbed the device. Aqua froze for a moment, staring with her mouth in an 'oh' shape.

"Thanks for that," the Doctor said.

"Hey!" Aqua shouted, snatching at it.

The Doctor wasn't too concerned. She just stepped back. She doubted Aqua was very strong physically, even if she did manage to grab it again. The Doctor muttered to herself, putting a plan together, and pressing buttons on the device.

Aqua's anger quickly changed to fear, because she couldn't move. Ice began to creep up around her feet.

"You reversed the signal," Aqua said quietly.

"That's the idea," the Doctor agreed. "This will now do to you, what you were doing to everyone else."

She set the device on the control panels, just out of reach of Aqua. She seemed to realize that too, because she made no attempt to snatch it back. The Doctor hadn't even really killed her. Members of Aqua's species hibernated in extreme cold, like certain frogs or insects on Earth. She'd be fine once she thawed.

"How dare you?!" Aqua shouted, squirming around as much as she could. "You can't do this to me! I will not be defeated this easily!"

"Actually, I think you just were."

The Doctor turned around and started back up the stairs. Aqua yelled after her, still mad this was happening and probably slipping some promise of revenge in, but the Doctor was barely listening. It was nothing she hadn't heard before.

Mike and Milan were still at the top, though they were staring down the hall with a certain amount of dread. She wondered how much they had heard. Well, she wasn't about to apologize. As soon as that device was out of Aqua's hands, they were all safe.

"So . . . what happened?" Mike asked.

The Doctor sighed. "I'm sure you noticed. Aqua was behind this. She'll still be alive when she's thawed out."

Mike nodded. "I see. We should probably get off this planet and tell people then. Might be best to leave her frozen here until we figure out what to do."

The Doctor shrugged. It would be easiest to just leave her as an icicle, but there were a lot of ways that could go wrong.

"Thank you, Doctor."

The Doctor nodded, then headed for the door while the other two headed for the stairs. She had someone to get. It took a little while to open the still iced over door, but it was melting without the technology to keep it going. She eventually managed to shove it open just enough to slip inside.

Selim lay unconscious on the floor. One of his arms, and a leg were partially frozen, but he was alive. She could see his chest rising and falling slightly.

Well, while he was out. . .

The Doctor scanned him. Her screwdriver said he was human, but that didn't always mean much. Humans spread out all over the universe and differed at least a bit from place to place. On Selim's home planet, for example, humans came with more blood than on earth. So the screwdriver might overlook a few anomalies. Still, it probably would've picked up if he was harboring shadows, or an energized Philosopher's Stone.

Now, time to get a move on. The sooner they got out the better.

* * *

Pride opened his eyes blearily. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but he wasn't in that shed anymore, and he wasn't frozen. In fact he felt pretty warm, and there was a soft blanket over him. Good.

He rolled over, and went back to sleep.

[Aqua not killing kids, or people she thinks are kids, was a last minuet idea, but it sure explains how Pride survived this arc. The Doctor also originally didn't know Aqua could hibernate, but that seems like an unlikely knowledge gap.]


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

[I decided to drop arc 6. This isn't relevant to you, anything important moved to arc 5, but since I said there were 12 arcs I thought I'd mention the change in plans.]

Pride woke up. For real this time. He got the vague feeling he'd opened his eyes before, but he had not been awake. He also noticed his headache was gone, and he felt a lot more alert. So those problems must've been caused by lack of sleep. It never ceased to annoy him how fragile humans were.

More aware, he glanced around the room. The bed felt a lot like the one at home, but it was clearly not his room. The lights above him were round and a dim yellow, and the walls he could see had those strange glowing rock structures supporting them. Like the ones in the Doctor's console room.

Wait. He was on the ship?

He sat up. He was definetly in a bedroom, all be it a small one. There was a small dresser, that could second as a nightstand, and a closet. He was still wearing his first layer shirt and pants, which had thankfully stayed dry. He couldn't see his wet clothes from the snow. He wasn't sure what had happened after he passed out, but it seemed the Doctor must've won. And she must not have suspected he had anything to do with Oliver's death, or waking up probably would've been more unpleasant. Being nearly frozen himself, five seconds later, had probably helped throw off suspicion.

He got up, and the lights turned on a bit brighter. Pride tensed up and looked around. Right. The TARDIS was alive. Hadn't the Doctor said that?

"You don't have to hang around here," he called out to the room. "I'm sure you've got other things to do."

There was no response, of course, but the feeling that he wasn't alone didn't go away. Pride sighed. He turned his attention to the room. He found his wet clothes hanging up in the closet, along with his shoes. The vest he'd had earlier was in the dresser. After the cyberman adventure, it was looking a little singed. He put it and the shoes back on anyway, and left the room.

Outside was silent except for a hum the TARDIS seemed to be giving off. The hall extended in both directions, seemingly forever. Pride peered down both ways. Neither seemed very different from the other, but he could see light further down the hall to the right.

Pride huffed. "Alright then."

There were a few doors on both sides of the hall as he walked down, but he ignored them. He didn't stop until he reached the end of the hall, with a white metal sliding door. That he pushed open.

It was a kitchen. An almost normal kitchen. Oh there were a few things Pride didn't recognize, but the vital parts were there, largely unchanged. There was a card table with some chairs around it, a counter, a sink, some cupboards, and a refrigerator. That was certainly enough to start with.

He started looking around. He found some bread in the refrigerator. Right. Toast sounded good. He closed the door, and suddenly someone was there, at the edge of the counter, looking in the cupboards.

Pride stared for a moment. It wasn't the Doctor. This was a man who looked like about half his body was made of black metal. The more human looking side of his head had black hair, and a brown eye. There seemed to be a faint red glow from under the metal parts, showing through the slight gaps between the plates.

The man closed the cupboard and noticed Pride was there. He smiled, revealing the metal part of his face also had pointy metal teeth. "Well hello there. And who do we have here?"

Pride did some very fast thinking. He had no idea who this person was, which always made first interactions a little hard, but if he was on this ship, Pride was going to play it safe and keep his act up.

"I'm Selim Bradley. Who are you? And why are you covered in metal? Is it automail?"

It was the closest thing Pride could think of, but he already knew that wasn't right.

"Automail?"

Pride nodded. "Metal limbs. People at home get them, if they lose one."

"Must be a thing from your planet then," the man said, waving a hand. "It's not automail. On my planet we have species made of metal, on the outside. I had a bit of an incident. Name's Porter. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He extended his right hand, namely the metal glowing one. Pride could see different plates moving to open his hand, but couldn't see any further to the workings below. He looked up at Porter skeptically, and added some fear into his expression as well.

"Is that safe?"

"If I want it to be," Porter said, smiling.

It looked like how he and his siblings smiled, which was a less than reassuring sign. Pride shook it anyway. It certainly heated his hand up. The grip wasn't as unpleasant as he'd expected though. Automail could be bone crushing. Was Porter holding back?

Porter laughed as Pride turned back to putting his bread in the toaster. "So kid, where are you from?"

"Amestris?"

"You're going to have to be a lot vaguer."

Pride tried the planet he was from instead.

Porter sighed, leaning against the counter. "Well, at least it's not Earth this time."

Based on context, Pride was going to assume Earth was a planet. It raised a different question though.

"What do you mean, 'this time'?"

Porter set to work also making breakfast, and drinking orange juice straight from the jug. "I mean the Doctor picks up companions all the time. Usually from some isolated planet that doesn't know the first thing about the rest of the universe. Earth is a favorite of hers, but yours sounds similar. What? Did you think you were the only companion the Doctor's ever had? Don't be so arrogant."

_You have no idea what you're asking. _

He tried to ignore the dramatic irony in Porter's wording, and focus on the Doctor. She hadn't wanted him to come. He had to ask her and she'd still been reluctant. So it would be a logical assumption. But considering how old she was, and how easily she'd relented, it was also obviously wrong. Of course, she'd picked up other people.

"Are you a . . . companion too then?" he asked.

Porter's aimiable expression fell, becoming more neutral. His human eye shifted to a faraway look.

"**No.**" His voice had taken on a multiple voice echo, a bit like Pride's shadows. "**I am the Doctor's enemy.**"

He raised his metal hand. The plates of his palm peeled back, and a blast of something came out. Pride wasn't sure what. It was very bright, but didn't hurt him despite how close he was. Then when it was gone the wall behind him was completely destroyed, as well as possibly things behind the wall, leaving a gaping hole. Porter continued to stare in that direction, seemingly not seeing him.

The toaster dinged. Pride took his toast and left the room.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The hall going out was the same as the one coming in. Pride reached his room, but passed it, until it opened up into the counsel room. He stumbled to a stop, blinking a few times in the dimmer light and bigger space.

"Selim. How was your sleep? Are you alright now?"

Pride nodded. It was true, sort of. "Did you know there's a guy named Porter in your TARDIS? He used his cybernetics to blow up the kitchen."

"Oh. Yes, I knew Porter was there. I invited him. I didn't invite him to blow up the TARDIS though. If he wants to escape, he'd have better luck by playing nice with her."

"I . . . what?"

"I'm sure you've noticed I find a good deal of trouble." Understatement of the year. Pride nodded. "Porter was one of the people causing it on one planet. I stopped him, but I also offered to let him come with me. I do that sometimes. I wasn't expecting him to except though. Made things awkward."

Well, at least she wasn't totally remorseless to her enemies. Might be useful for him. He sat down. The Doctor apparently misinterpreted that as him being overwhelmed.

"Sorry Selim."

"What?"

"I've been dragging you from one dangerous futuristic place to another. It seemed like a good idea, but I just put more information and pressure on you than I should. I'm sorry."

Pride shook his head, but actually put some thought into his answer. "No. I like learning new things, and seeing all these places. But it might've been a bit much."

"Do you want to go home?"

"No," Pride said. But stopping there would be suspicious, and if he acted like everything was fine the Doctor might keep going on at this pace. "I told you I like travelling. But, maybe we could just go someplace easier this time?"

The Doctor smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

She set the TARDIS off to a new location and flung the doors open. Sand came rolling in. They were in a desert. She stood there in silence for a moment.

"We're going to need some goggles. Oh, and we should contact your mom sometime."

As it turned out, there was in fact a phone in the TARDIS he could call from. He wasn't sure how a box that could go anywhere in time and space and was currently sitting in a desert could get the right person when he put in the home number, with very clear reception at that, but it had. Pride let Mrs. Bradley know he was alright, and told her he'd stopped to get lunch with the Doctor. Apparently, very little time had passed for her. Technically, he and the Doctor had in fact had lunch in there somewhere, it had just been a much longer trip than Mrs. Bradley would assume.

* * *

The Doctor and Pride wandered the desert with the gear they found in the TARDIS. It wasn't a normal desert. The sand came in all different colors, the sort of torquise probably being the best. And they didn't even run into anything that wanted to kill them.

* * *

The Doctor led them to one of the universe's largest shopping centers. Rummaging around in the TARDIS had confirmed they, unsurprisingly, did not have much in Selim's size.

Going to someplace this big meant there would actually be fun stores to go to. It also meant the TARDIS had dropped them off on the wrong end of the center. The two wandered around a little. They got something to eat. The Doctor stopped at the lego store and ending up putting on a juggling show. Selim 'helped' by handing her increasingly ridiculous things to juggle. She wasn't sure where he'd got a live, rolled up armadillo. Selim had stared at the alchemy shop for a while, surprised to see so much knowledge on public display. The Doctor explained some things were still off limits, like flame alchemy, but this shop did cover a lot of the basics.

Then the Doctor led them to the teleporters, and sent them clear to the other side of the center. She stepped out with a satisfied smile and turned around. Selim had used the teleporter next to hers, but he stumbled out, looking paler than usual.

"Did something go wrong?" the Doctor asked.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

And then he was.

* * *

Pride sat in the TARDIS reading. It was good to escape the wider universe sometimes, though the wider TARDIS could arguably be no better.

The Doctor's library was huge. After spending some time trying to figure out how to sort through it, he decided to start with the section on alchemy. It had far more than you'd find in Amestris, even in Central, and some of that could be helpful for things like unfamiliar floors.

He pet a cat as he read. He'd been a little surprised to see an animal just wandering about the TARDIS, but at this point it was going to take a lot more to phase him. It was admittedly nice to be able just go up and touch animals, without them reacting to the many souls of a Philosopher's Stone.

The cat suddenly stretched, front legs going out like normal. But two black wings also flapped up off its back, and when it opened its eyes they were purple. It blinked its big eyes up at Pride a few times.

Pride stared back for a moment and then actually laughed. He should've known it wasn't a regular cat.

* * *

The Doctor took them to a volcano.

"It hasn't erupted in years. It should be fine. Probably."

Again, not phased. Pride peered over the side.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

[I am only moderately sorry this chapter exists. It was originally even shorter, and funnier, but it also originally took place later in the story so I had to make a few changes.]

Pride's room was looking more lived in. Books about alchemy or the places they'd been sat under the bed. He'd put some images and maps on the wall occasionally. He'd also set a bowl of water and cat food down for the rather odd pet wandering the Doctor's TARDIS. There was some sheet music on the dresser. He'd gotten it after finding a piano in the TARDIS. And in theory, he had more clothes.

Pride looked in the closet. The Doctor had grabbed two new outfits for him, while he'd been busy lying down and trying to get rid of the sick feeling. He could not remember every throwing up before using that teleporter. Of course, he had a hard time remembering anything from the first year or so after the Promised Day, and he had no desire to remember more. He was pretty sure forgetting was the only thing that stopped him from dying of humiliation on the spot.

Back to the point, the Doctor had actually managed to get something that looked like what he'd normally wear, though making the button up shirt blue was a little odd. The other outfit was clearly made with technology that didn't exist yet, and he was going to pass it over for the foreseeable future.

Now, time to change.

* * *

"Doctor? Can I ask? What is Porter, exactly?" Pride asked.

He'd seen Porter a few more times, especially during his trips to the library. He never got any closer to the exit than the kitchen, and he continued to be very strange.

The Doctor had been spinning around the controls when he asked. Pride wasn't sure why, they didn't seem to be going anywhere. She slowed as she answered.

"It's not really clear."

_Your answers aren't really clear._

Luckily, the Doctor elaborated. "Porter is from a planet, they've got a sort of feud between the native biological species, and the living machines. The flesh species made the machines, but made them as perfect servants, and then of course the machines still broke away and are forever upset about this situation. Anyway. Porter was born fully flesh. Later they attached living metal to him. It seems to me he's actually two very similar beings in one body now."

* * *

"Oh, is that what she told you?"

Pride sat at the kitchen table with Porter, drinking tea as he explained the conversation he'd had with the Doctor.

"Well, I'm me, and I think I know what's going on in my head better than the Doctor," Porter said. He tapped his head. "I am one person. The human part of my brain and the mechanical one happen to be good at different subjects, but I am in control of both those halves, the same way anyone is in charge of their brains. She just wants an excuse for why I'd be mad at both species. Well, I don't need separate minds to have that particular ax to grind."

Porter stood up, pressing both hands against the table. It looked like he was going to break the table with his metal one.

"I notice she skates around how very little choice I had in the matter. Tell me Selim, do you have any idea what having your body thrown away and replaced with an entirely different species, against your will, is like?"

Right. Pride was just going to, to drink more tea instead of answering that.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Pride walked down the hall, an idea in mind.

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Can we go to Amestris' past?" There was a pause. "You said this ship travels in time, right? And I just thought it would be nice to use that in a place I'm familiar with. And it's a good way to learn about history, isn't it?"

The Doctor was quiet for a moment and Pride tried not to react. This was certainly a risk. It could be an inoculous enough comment, but given his history, it could also be suspicious. He'd been planning to take the risk since the Doctor first mentioned the ship could travel through time though.

"There are rules," the Doctor said. "You can't mess with the past. It's against the rules of time and it could make changes to history or you." Yes, that was the point. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy traveling with the Doctor. He did. At over three hundred, it was rare to experience something so new. He actually had it in him to do things again. But he wasn't going to completely ignore the potential to change the past. "You never know what could happen."

Well it would be hard to make things worse than they currently were.

Pride nodded. "That's okay. No one even has to know we're there."

"Okay." The Doctor walked back towards the controls. "Okay. Why not? I don't always go where I planned, but I can try."

They took off. Outside he could hear rain now. The Doctor opened the door partially to a stone wall. She turned back to him.

"You ready?"

They walked out into a stone hall, blue ornate rug on the floor. There were no windows in sight, the only light coming from a torch on the wall.

"Well something went wrong," the Doctor said.

Pride nodded. "There are no castles in Amestris," he said, making his tone oh so happy he could tell the Doctor that.

Amestris had been a very small country before Father had taken it over, and even then castles were becoming far less common, and Father had been busy preparing for the Promised Day. But they were clearly in a castle, and considering the years castles were built, Pride might not even be born yet. That was no easy feat.

Which was nice and all, but he'd finally had a plan, and it involved Amestris, and preferably a little later in history. Why did the TARDIS have to get it wrong, again?

"What the-? What are you doing here?!"

Pride straightened up. He and the Doctor turned towards the voice. There was a young man in the hallway. He was built kind of like a stick with brown hair and eyes. He'd raised his fists but he clearly had no fighting skills. For one, he was holding his fists wrong.

"I don't know how you got in," he said. "But you must be intruders."

"Intruders? Excuse you," the Doctor said with an affronted expression. She stepped forward and pulled out what looked like a wallet, flipping it open. "I'll have you know we were invited. I'm Jane Bradley, this is my nephew Selim. We're expected. Don't tell me you're not prepared."

Pride tried not to stare. The Doctor had never used a fake name before. And not only that, she'd used his. It made sense. If she thought he was Selim she was making it easier on him, and even as Pride it was nice not to have another name he was juggling around. But it just sounded weird to hear her call herself a Bradley.

"What?" The man took a step back, uncertainty flashing across his face, and fists dropping. "No. No of course we're prepared. I'm sure you'll enjoy tonight's feast. My apologies. I, we, just didn't expect you inside already."

"Feast?" the Doctor asked.

If she was pretending they were supposed to be there, she should probably pretend to now why.

Luckily, the person they'd met didn't seem to notice. "Of course. I'm Peter. If you'll just come this way, I can take you to the Great Hall."

He waved his hand for them to follow, and started down the hall. They passed a narrow window rain was getting through, and down an absurdly narrow staircase. Eventually they reached a large wooden door. Peter pushed it open with impressive strength for someone his size. Inside were multiple wooden tables, along the wall to create space in the middle of the room. On the other side was a large fire place, flames roaring in it. There was a balcony in the right hand corner of the room, but no one was up there. In fact, aside from the three of them, there was no one in the room at all.

Pride looked around with a frown. "Is it supposed to be empty?" he asked.

"Not to worry. The Lord and Lady will be here soon," Peter assured them. "You just make yourself comfortable."

Then he bowed and walked out of the room. The Doctor slowly made her way further in. The way her eyes darted around, it was like she was looking for something. Well, given their history so far, Pride couldn't blame her for being on her guard.

He moved after her. "Is everything alright? You seem worried. And no one's here."

"I don't know. Something seems off here."

"Oh."

Pride looked around the room again, but couldn't tell what she was talking about.

But then they had just sat down when a rumbling shook the castle. The table shifted, rattling the plates on it. Pride could feel the chair shake under him. And it wasn't coming from outside. It was coming from the ground, from somewhere below them. So it couldn't be thunder.

Pride stared at the floor, then back up at the Doctor. Yes, she'd noticed what was wrong as well.

"What was that?" Pride asked, leaning in closer to half whisper.

"I don't know. But I think it's time we investigated, don't you?"

_Well, here we go again. _He actually didn't mind so much this time. It had been a while after all. He nodded.

That was when the doors reopened. Trumpts played, and Lord Frederick and Lady Emily were announced.

[Historical accuracy isn't my thing, but given what 1910s Amestris looked like I don't think that really matters.]


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

"Ah, you must be my guests," Frederick said. "Lady. . ."

"Jane," the Doctor said. "This is my nephew."

She gestured to Pride, who nodded. At least she hadn't used Bradley again. It was weird. And there was already a Lady Bradley. She was home safe in Amestris, completely oblivious to the fact this was happening.

Frederick tried to exchange a few pleasantries as they walked back to the table, joined by two other men. However when he asked the Doctor what she thought of the castle, she said it was big, and that she should get herself a decorative suit of armor. Frederick seemed less interested in trying after that.

"If you don't mind me asking, is there something we should worry about?" the Doctor asked.

Frederick and Emily had already been holding themselves rather stiffly. They managed to tense up even more after that. So there absolutely was something to worry about, and they did mind her asking.

The Doctor plowed on. "It's just, we felt a very heavy shake a few moments ago."

Frederick laughed. "Oh that. It's a combination of the storm, and the hard work people are doing expanding our dungeons. There's no need to worry. We are quite secure."

They didn't get any further with that train of thought, because at that moment Peter, and a few others, came out with food.

Emily cleared her throat. "Well enough about worries. The entertainment should be here soon, and in the meantime, I'm sure you'd like some introductions." She gestured to the two men sitting on the other side of the table. "This is Merek. He's in charge of the knights. And this is Arthur, our alchemist."

Pride had been paying attention to his food until then. "You have an alchemist?" he asked, head perking up.

Emily nodded with a smile. "It's quite rare. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't have one. But Arthur here is skilled. We're grateful to have him."

"We do have an alchemist!" He was one himself, but he couldn't say that. He quickly grabbed an alchemist's name, one that had been on his mind often enough it came without any though. "His name is Edward and he's really good. He can clap his hands together to make alchemy, instead of using circles."

"What?" Frederick asked, gasping and dropping his meat. Emily didn't seem to know how to respond. Yeah, he'd got them.

"That's impossible," Arthur said firmly.

"It is," the Doctor agreed. "I know you're proud of our alchemist, but don't over sell it."

Pride frowned, but took the hint. He huffed and went back to eating.

Luckily at that moment, entertainment did come. They got music, both instruments and singing, and someone telling a story. Pride didn't pay much attention. But it was alright. At least the ground hadn't rumbled again. It was nice to deal with the adventure on their terms for once. Was that why the previous ones had been stressful? All that reacting and no proacting? Or maybe it was just familiar now.

Frederick tried to talk to the Doctor about her home (and supposed castle) a few times, but she clearly had no idea what was going on. Either Frederick and Emily were oblivious, or didn't care.

When the show, and food, was over, Emily ordered someone to lead the Doctor and Pride to their room.

"Well, that was exciting," the Doctor said, letting out a breath that sounded like relief.

"We were close to getting caught," Pride pointed out.

"Yes, no thanks to you mentioning circle-less alchemy," the Doctor said. "I know you like Amestris, and some of the people that use alchemy in the present. But this is in the past, and someplace alchemy is rarer. You need to be careful."

Well that was just ridiculous. Yes, Pride had bragged about something that would be phenomenally rare for their place and time. But everyone had shrugged it off fairly easily. The Doctor had bluffed her way through the whole evening, clearly with very little idea what was expected.

"I'm sorry. But . . . it wasn't just me."

The Doctor sighed. "Just don't do it again, okay?"

Pride nodded, swallowing any other feelings on the matter.

"Now, do you want to go investigate?"

Pride actually felt his lips quirking up. Back to the Doctor's usual business then. "What are we going to do?"

"Go to the dungeons," the Doctor answered. "That seems to be where the trouble's coming from."

"Okay!"

He ran after the Doctor as she opened the door, peering around. The hall seemed empty. She stepped out and started tiptoeing.

"Do you have any guesses?" Pride whispered.

The Doctor shook her head. "Considering the time period, if there's anything here that doesn't look human, the people probably would've attacked it. That doesn't really narrow it down."

"Is it always an alien?" Pride asked, knowing full well the answer was no.

Asking questions he already knew the answer to helped his act. And he was sort of curious how the Doctor would answer. He couldn't see her expression from behind, but she'd slowed down.

"No. There are people who are a part of this planet that don't look human. They still deserve respect, and it's hypocritical to say otherwise. Look at me. I'm less human than anyone you'll ever meet. I just blend in."

Well then. He and his siblings had been called monsters all the time. He'd never cared. From their perspective, they were right, and what did he care about the opinions of humans? Still, he found he did care about the Doctor's opinions. He wouldn't say she was less human than he and his siblings, but he might need to know more about Time Lord biology.

They continued in silence after that. The Doctor stopped them at every corner to check for people, but it was empty. They made it to the first floor and headed for the dungeon. But just as they reached the great hall, the rumbling came again. Only it didn't sound much like a rumble this time. It sounded like a roar. The ground beneath them cracked, and burst open.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

[You know I hate when I add or remove chapters. I have to keep changing the chapter number, and it's still saved under the old number, so I have to try and remember which one is next.]

Pride slid backwards down the cracking floor, only to fall off of it in entirety into the dungeon below. He screamed before being cut off by the impact of the fall. The air was knocked out of him.

As soon as he could, he sat up, and saw a large scaled claw nearby.

Pride shook his head and looked up. There was a giant reptile, about the size of Envy's true form, in front of him. It had dark red, almost black scales, and glowing orange eyes. It walked on four legs, but there were also two large wings that it partially unfurled now that there was no ceiling in the way. It let out another roar and frills on either side of its face flapped out, like feathers puffing up.

The Doctor was still on the first floor. Pride could see her grabbing an object meant to hold a torch to stop herself from falling. She was staring at the reptile in front of them with a mix of awe and sadness.

"You're a dragon," the Doctor said.

The reptile's crazed eyes focused, turning toward the Doctor as she spoke. Pride tensed up. The dragon still looked very angry, it was just that anger was directed now. It growled, moving its head closer to the Doctor.

Pride couldn't see them, but he could tell by the footsteps and voices that the humans were coming. Still, the dragon seemed focused on the Doctor.

Her eyes darted up and down the reptile. "What is your name?"

"Ethron." The voice had been a deep rumbling sound, seemingly coming from multiple parts of the room.

"Listen. Listen Erthon, you don't have to do this. These people, they're not a challenge, and they don't really want anything to do with you. If you just leave-"

"You are lying."

The Doctor closed her mouth. Pride jumped. Above him, he could just make out two servants exchange shocked glances.

"The humans want me here. Or do you believe I enjoy being locked away?"

"I know. I know. And I'm so sorry. But they're just scared. We can still work this out."

The dragon didn't let her continue. "That is no excuse."

It tilted its head so one eye was focused on the Doctor, then reeled back with its long neck slightly. Smoke began to puff out from the sides of the dragon's mouth. It was obvious what was about to happen, but the Doctor didn't seem to notice.

"Oh. I understand now."

"Doctor, move!" Pride tried to warn.

Tried in that he shouted it, and the Doctor heard, but it was a bit late. The dragon opened its mouth and confirmed it was a dragon, with a stream of nearly white fire coming out of its mouth.

Even from the floor below, Pride felt his hair whip up and the air get a lot warmer. The flames shot in a relatively narrow straight line for the Doctor, only to disappear, flicker out.

The Doctor stood back up and looked around in confusion. Pride couldn't say he blamed her. He peered through the smoke. It was that alchemist, Arthur. He stood to the side, by the dragon's wing and the Doctor. In his hand was a bit of scroll, with obvious alchemy symbols on it.

"You need oxygen for fire," he said.

The dragon didn't seem surprised things went this way. It growled, face scrunching up slightly, and whirled around to face Arthur, jaw open.

"No wait!" the Doctor shouted.

The dragon smacked its tail against the wall, knocking stones out of it and forcing the Doctor to move. It was possibly that hadn't been on purpose, but if so, it was a big coincidence. It had made the Doctor shut up after all.

Pride moved out of the way of the dragon's legs and glanced back up. Things didn't look good for the dragon, actually. It was huge, scaled, and had very sharp teeth even without breathing fire. But there was not a lot of space to maneuver in. When it tried to bite Arthur, he simply stepped further to side, forcing Erthon to stretch his neck out. Then there was the fact Merek and a few guards had shown up to attack.

The first idiot swung a sword at it. The sword hit the scales and shattered. So the other guard jumped up onto Erthon and stabbed it in the eye. Erthon let out a roar and swung its head around violently. The guard was flung off, slamming into a wall, and Merek was pushed back by one of Erthon's wings unfolding a little more. He took out his sword and sliced at it. The wings were unprotected skin after all.

Arthur raised his alchemy symbol again. Erthon's eyes got wider and his jaw opened as his head heaved up and down. Right. Arthur controlled the oxygen in the air. Erthon was probably struggling to get enough of it. Of course he had a large body, and presumably impressive lung capacity, but eventually his eyes shut and his head slammed against the floor. Pride backed up again to avoid it. Arthur pulled out another circle that Pride guessed was a reverse transmutation. Erthon resumed breathing, but it was shallow.

At the top of the grand hall, the balcony, Frederick had entered. He clearly hadn't been expecting this, standing there in night clothes with a surprised expression, before he quickly schooled it.

"Ah. Jane. I am so sorry about all this."

He hadn't mentioned Pride at all, but he was sitting in the dungeon. It was possible Frederick couldn't see him. And he'd no doubt consider the Doctor the more important person in the room.

The Doctor seemed to disagree. She turned slowly, deliberately, towards him. "Selim, are you alright?" He nodded. "Why don't you come back up?"

Pride nodded again and headed for the stairs. They were luckily still in one piece. He heard the Doctor and Frederick talking still.

"You haven't been entirely honest with us."

"Ah. Well, yes. I thought it would be best not to worry you. As you can see, we have everything under control."

"No. That's not what I see."

Pride left the main part of dungeon and started up the stairs. He could no longer see what was going on, and the voices were muffled. He was pretty sure the Doctor and Frederick were arguing about if they should free Ethron, or if doing so would kill them all.

He made it about halfway up the stairs when a sword appeared in front of him, very close to his neck. Right. He was out of sight. No one would notice. Great. Was this going to be the near-death experience for this trip? Faking a fearful look, he raised his head.

Merek was there, holding the sword. "Not so fast," he said quietly, in a tone that was probably supposed to be threatening. "Arthur wants to have a little talk with you."


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26

[Have I mentioned I've put too much of my life into this? I've got this main storyline, which might take place over multiple fics just a heads up, I've got one shot ideas taking place before and after this story line, and I've got two arcs that are going into their own separate fic for reasons. If I write everything I plan, I'm going to be doing this for a while, aren't I?]

Merek picked Pride up, sword still to his neck. He went up the stairs, slipping past the group in the dinning hall, and to a small staircase hidden behind a tapestry.

"I didn't know this was here."

"Staff hall," Merek supplied. Pride got the feeling he was shrugging.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Arthur's room."

He wasn't impressed. Merek was answering this all very easily, and seemingly very honestly. So he kept going.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"That depends on if you answer the questions."

Pride seriously doubted he was in danger. The Doctor might come swooping in to save the day at the last second like she had before, but there was no guarantee, and he didn't need her to. He started thinking of ideas himself. It would be easy to transmute Merek's sword into a useless lump of metal. He'd just have to wait for it to be a little farther away from his neck. In the meantime, talking held some power.

They reached a door and entered. The room inside was nice, though not as big and extravagant as the "guest" room he and the Doctor were staying in. It also had papers scattered everywhere and pinned up to the walls, despite there being a desk. It seemed Arthur just wrote on the first surface he could find. He didn't seem to be writing in code either. What a stupid decision.

Arthur was standing by his bed. He spun around as they entered. "Good, you got him."

Merek nodded, setting Pride back down.

"What do you want?" Pride asked, letting some of his genuine annoyance slip in.

Arthur just seemed amused, convinced he held the power here. "I want to talk about this alchemist of yours, Edward," Arthur replied.

"You said I was making him up," Pride said.

"Yes, and it's a good thing too, or Frederick would be leading this conversation. An under educated buffoon like him? That would be a waste, at best."

Pride noticed Merek tense up behind him. Convenient.

"Isn't he your Lord?" Pride asked innocently. "That sounds like an awfully rude thing to think of him."

Arthur sighed. He plopped down so he was at Pride's level. "You're young, so I'll cut you some slack. But a life lesson for you, how many people do you think actually respect their rulers? No, the general population is kept in line by fear, or hope they'll gain some of that power themselves."

Well no arguments from Pride. Both were reasons so many humans went along with Father's plan. Arthur might, however, get some argument from Merek. His sword was starting to tremble, and Arthur was too focused on Pride to notice.

"Is that what you're going to do?" Pride asked, trying to sound the proper amount of scandalized. "If I tell you about circle-less alchemy, are you going to turn against Lord Frederick?"

Arthur seemed to actually think it over. "Well, I probably won't dethrone him if that's what you mean. Even if I won, which I could, that's a lot of work. And the people around probably wouldn't be very happy with me. It's better to threaten him in secret, or go to a castle where I'm a stranger."

"What?" Merek asked in that sort of, quiet rage tone. Arthur looked up in surprise. "You've used me for this? You conniving, self-centered, basted. You used me to overthrow the ruler of this castle, the one who gave you this much power in the first place, and I bet you'll just discard me soon.

From Arthur's expression, it seemed he knew how hypocritical Merek's comments were. Merek's sword drifted towards Arthur's neck now. Arthur put on a placeating smile, but Pride didn't have to put up with this any longer. He wasn't in immediate danger. He clapped his hands together and put one on Merek's sword. The sword shattered, the half Merek was still holding dulled around the pointed sides. It would still hurt to get hit with, but it shouldn't cause bleeding.

Both men seemed surprised. Arthur's expression was to stare at him, blinking stupidly. Merek's mouth opened in the shape of an 'oh', and he lowered his sword arm.

Arthur recovered first, standing to full height with a glare. "So, you're the one with circle-less alchemy."

"Yes, don't act so surprised."

"I hope you realize this makes my job easier."

"Hey! Don't forget about me!" Merek shouted. "If you think I need a proper sword to fight, you're gravely mistaken."

Oh enough of this. With Merek in front of the door, it would be easier for Pride to just alchemy an opening, rather than take the exit.

Pride stepped to the side, clapping his hands together. Arthur's eyes widened. He quickly pulled out a piece of parchment with a very familiar symbol. Blue transmutation sparks crackled through the air, and the air around became unbreathable. Pride tried to gasp, and he was certainly sucking something in, but it wasn't oxygen. Merek was also struggling, dropping his broken sword.

Pride didn't know much about using alchemy on thin air, admittedly. But he'd seen Arthur do so a few times, including the reverse circle he'd used after Erthon went to sleep. With that and his notes just out in the open in the room like this, Pride was pretty sure he understood the concept well enough to copy. He clapped his hands together and put them out. It was odd to use alchemy on oxygen. It was just pressing your hands against air, but it worked. More oxygen instantly filled the air and he took a few breaths.

Actually, maybe that was a bit too much oxygen. Breathing still felt funny, and he was starting to get a headache.

"You didn't free Merek," Arthur pointed out, stepping in front of his desk. "How cold of you."

"He tried to kill me," Pride pointed out, trying to take shallower breaths.

"On my orders."

Well this much oxygen probably wouldn't do Merek any favors. Pride turned his attention to the wall again, and almost missed the fact Arthur picked up another piece of parchment. This one had a different transmutation on it.

It was like being hit by an invisible fist. He must have condensed the air or something. It knocked Pride right off the ground and into the wall, at which point he passed out.

[This seems to be the first arc where there's any kind of fight scenes. It won't be the last.]


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

When Pride woke up it was cold, dark, and he was clearly lying on stone. It didn't take long to remember why. He tried to push himself up and quickly realized that, while he had some mobility, his hands were in those special cuffs that made it impossible to press his palms together. Because of course he was.

Pride sighed and leaned against the wall. "This is my life now," he muttered.

Then he heard something shift in front of him. Pride snapped his head back down and blinked out into the darkness in front of him. It was certainly hard to see, but it wasn't total darkness. He'd know.

There was a huge form in front of him. Given the size, and other context clues, he could guess he was in with Ethron. Lovely. Well, if he was going to kill Pride, he would've done before, right?

"Hello?" Pride called out.

There was more shifting. A glowing orange eye met him.

"You are not of this kingdom," Ethron said, voice echoing around. "In fact, you smell of space, little human."

Pride scowled. "I'm not human."

"You smell of one." Pride was not impressed. Ethron must've noticed because he sighed and changed titles. "Very well, little alien. Why are you here?"

Pride thought over how much to say. If he smelled like space, it made sense Ethron would assume he was an alien. And normally he'd assume 'little' was a reference to his supposed age, but considering who he was talking to it might actually mean size. So no need to correct him on either.

"I'm not sure," Pride answered. "It was a mistake. The Doctor's not very good at steering."

"The Doctor?"

"Oh. Jane Bradley. She was . . . lying about that name."

"I suppose I should've known. She smells like time." Pride had had Gluttony's sense of smell for a while, and he was still pretty confident you couldn't smell like time. "But her name is the Doctor?"

Pride frowned. "It's the name she gave when she was pretending to be my tutor." It was admittedly a little strange. She'd never given another name, but he'd never asked, not even when he found out the truth.

Ethron was quiet for a moment. The way his head moved, Pride would guess he was thinking hard about something.

"So she was pretending to be a tutor?" Pride nodded. "And you were pretending too?" Pride wasn't sure where he'd gotten that, but he reluctantly nodded again. He wasn't sure where Ethron was going with this. "Has it occurred to you, your relationship is built entirely on lies?"

"What does it matter?"

Ethron shook his head. "A relationship like that does not hold up, not as more of the truth is revealed.

"That's not always true," Pride said, automatically dismissing the issue now that he knew what it was.

Sometimes Ethron was right, but Mrs. Bradley hadn't known the truth about her son or husband, and yet she still raised him even after Edward told her some of it. Even after she found out he was still Pride. For that matter, he was keeping secrets from her again right now, seeing as she didn't know he was traveling with the Doctor. And they were fine. Right?

He shook his head. More to the point, the Doctor was never finding out this truth.

Ethron didn't seem impressed, but he didn't push the issue any further. "Mmm. You two are not safe here." Considering he was currently imprisoned with a dragon, that was not a large leap to make. "I will release myself from this prison soon, and destroy the humans. You should escape while you can."

"You shouldn't do that. I don't like humans either, believe me, but the Doctor does, and she'll stop you."

Ethron's eyes moved in a way that reminded Pride of a raised eyebrow. "How?"

Pride shrugged. He didn't know why he was telling Ethron this at all. "No idea. But she will stop you. She always has, and it never ends well for the people she stops."

It could be a bit much, but it was also nice in a way, to know he absolutely did not need a plan. The Doctor had this. She was one of the few people he could consider intelligence, and who didn't ignore him based on appearances, even if that attention could be incredibly patronizing.

"I'll consider you advice," Erthon said. "But you should still leave."

"There's a problem with that." Pride lifted his cuffed hands.

Erthon lifted a claw and slashed through the wood.

Pride didn't wait any longer. He went up the stairs, tip toeing as he got closer to the top. He'd just escaped. He wasn't getting himself caught again right away. As he got closer, he saw there was a guard by the door. Good thing he'd slowed down then. There was an easy solution.

Quietly, Pride pressed his palms together and made an exit to the side. If the guard noticed the sound, or sight, of alchemy sparks, he must have written it off as Ethron.

He crept around the halls, up the stairs, and to the guest room. It was empty. Pride sighed. He strummed his fingers against the doorframe, thinking what to do for a moment. Well, the Doctor wasn't here, and it didn't seem like the safest place to be. He went back into the hall, straining his ears for the sound of anyone else.

There was someone coming around the corner. It was Peter.

"Selim! There you are. Jane's been looking all over for you. Come on, I'll take you to her."

He grabbed Pride's hand and pulled him off. _I know how to walk, _Pride thought dully.

They didn't go very far. The Doctor was still on the second floor, calling out for him. Relief flooded her face as she Peter brought him over, and went to let the other servants know they could stop looking.

"You're Aunt was very persuasive that we help look," Peter said as he left.

"Selim! Where have you been? I was worried you'd gone and gotten yourself eaten or something."

"Arthur kidnapped me. He wanted to know about circle-less alchemy, and he locked me in with Ethron when I didn't tell him."

"He-what? Well, we're going to have to do something about this. Might work in Ethron's favor too. Come on."

She started back off down the hall with a purpose. Pride followed her, but asked something that was on his mind now.

"So, dragons are real?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Actually, there are two species of dragon, from the same planet. The Werns are snake like, and in theory, easier to reason with. The Begons are built larger, and more brutish. The two species rarely get along, and it's important to know which we're dealing with, if we want to end this. That's why I was looking at Ethron so hard."

"So which one is he?"

"That's the thing. I think he's both. I think he had one parent from each, a crossbreed."

"Like a hybrid?"

"No, we don't talk about that." Pride stared at the Doctor without the faintest idea what she was talking about, and the Doctor did look a little sheepish once she realized what she'd said. "Right. But for all intents and purposes, yes, something like that. It's exciting. And sad. He probably hasn't left because he has no home to go to."

"So what are we going to do now?"

Between the dragon in the basement, the alchemist after his life, and the fact this wouldn't spell the end of the world, it seemed like a great time to go. But the Doctor was invested now, so he knew that wasn't happening.

"We have to get Erthon out of here. Since we can't convince the people here to let him go, we'll have to distract them. Arthur's little ploy might be just what we need."

That was actually true. "He probably still wants circle-less alchemy. He says he wants it to be more powerful than Frederick, and Merek heard that too."

"Let's go then."


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28

"Where are we going?"

"We have to tell Frederick about this."

"What if Arthur just attacks us again?"

"Then that's a fight he's going to lose."

Her tone left no room for argument, but he would feel better when the immediate danger was passed.

The two headed down stairs and into the great hall again. Frederick was there, along with some staff members, and Arthur. It seemed they'd been fixing up the floor. Well, that explained why there hadn't been a gaping hole in the ceiling while Pride was in the dungeon.

The floor was back together, but the alchemy work was sloppy, leaving clear transmutation marks, and the other servants were currently reinforcing the floor. Clearly Arthur's specialty was oxygen, and not much else.

"Lord Frederick!" the Doctor shouted. The tone was a little mocking, but the Doctor pressed on before Frederick could really comment on it. "There's a little something you should know! Why don't you tell him Selim?"

Arthur suddenly looked like he'd rather be anyplace else.

Pride tried not to burst into a grin. Envy took the most pleasure in making humans fight each other. By a landslide. Pride always found humans too boring and predictable to take that kind of joy out of it. But all the homunculi had done so at some point or another, to carve the crests of blood. It was something he was good at. And right now he couldn't deny this was great.

"Arthur kidnapped me!" Pride exclaimed, stepping partially behind the Doctor and making his voice tremble. This was the easiest he'd slipped into his act in . . . possibly years. "He said he was going to learn circle-less alchemy to overthrow Lord Frederick. He-he tried to kill me when I wouldn't tell him."

Technically, Pride had fought back before Arthur tried to kill him, but as he'd suspected, everyone was too busy with the accusations for Arthur to correct him.

"You've done what?" Frederick admonished, rounding on Arthur.

"I've done no such thing sir."

"Yes he did!" Pride actually stomped his foot. "Merek saw! He can tell you! And then he locked me up with that dragon. He could tell you too."

"You involved a dragon in this? Going down to him is extremely dangerous for all us!" Frederick shouted.

"Arthur has always had some negative views towards you my Lord," Peter said, practically leaping at the chance to tell on Arthur.

"That is not true," Arthur said, though he'd backed up slightly. "I always serve you well. I helped you contain that dragon, didn't I? Haven't I always done as you instructed?"

"That doesn't mean much," Frederick said.

"Should I get Merek?" Peter asked.

The Doctor dropped to Pride's level. "Let's go," she whispered. "We should tell Ethron he can get out of here."

She started away. Pride followed. Her plan had done the trick so far. None of the humans noticed them leave.

They quickly went down the stairs to the dungeon, the Doctor taking one of the huge torches off the wall without breaking her stride. Well, at least Pride could see this time. It became clear how this space was really too small for a dragon. Ethron's head and tail were coiled tightly around his body. When he moved his head to look at them, it was by lifting it and scraping it against the ceiling.

Pride couldn't make out the words being said upstairs, but he could hear the muffled voices.

"You've returned," Ethron said.

"Yes, we have," the Doctor agreed. "And I want you to leave now. Selim and I can help you escape."

_When did I sign up for this?_

Ethron tilted his head. "And go where? I have no home."

"Do you really want to stay here? These people have treated you horribly, but you could make a home for yourself someplace else. There are places you can be happy. I could even help. I travel around a lot."

Ethron was silent for a moment, staring at the Doctor with his orange, faintly glowing, eye. It wasn't the easiest to read, but Pride got the feeling he had already come to a conclusion and waited a little longer for dramatic effect.

"That may be," Ethron agreed. "But these people will suffer first."

"What? No, no wait," the Doctor said.

Ethron didn't wait. He brought his head back up through the ceiling, spraying flames everywhere as he went. Above, Pride could see Arthur scramble for his alchemy scroll, but the distraction had worked a little too well, and all the humans clearly needed more time. Ethron brought his wide jaws to Arthur, going over his head.

Suddenly the Doctor was angling Pride back to the stairs.

"Come on," she urged. "We need to get back up there."

Had she just tried to censor that death? It was a little late for that. Though seeing as Ethron had almost certainly snapped Arthur in half, it was probably the messiest death so far.

They reached the top of the stairs. Sure enough, just about everything flammable was on fire. Except some of the people. Frederick and Peter had hid behind a flipped table.

The Doctor moved towards them, sliding behind the table as well.

"Hey! We need to get Ethron out of here."

"The dragon? I noticed, thank you!" Frederick shouted back.

"About time," the Doctor muttered.

"If you've got a suggestion, I'm open to it!"

"Yes, I've got an idea. I've always got an idea. This is a normal castle, right? With defenses under the gate?"

Frederick frowned, but nodded.

"Great. Take me to them."

"Take her to them," Frederick ordered Peter.

Peter nodded, looking rather pale. He grabbed the Doctor's hand. She slipped out of his grip, but followed him as he started down the hall.

"Selim, stay with Frederick," the Doctor instructed. "You'll be safer there."

That was . . . seriously debatable. But Ethron ignored him and Frederick for a moment, shooting flames down the hall after the Doctor, so maybe she had a point. It was a good thing Ethron's lower half was still in the dungeon. Pride could hear his tail thumping around down there.

Ethron stretched out both wings, which hit the table and sent it, and the two people, flying. Pride slammed into the wall. He saw Ethron turning around. He got the distinct feeling the dragon would succeed before him and Frederick were back up.

Merek appeared in the doorway. He launched himself on top of Ethron and tried to stab him in the eye. Ethron closed that eye and shook his head, causing Merek to fly off into a burning table.

But at this point both Pride and Frederick had gotten up. Pride glanced at the man and started moving in the opposite direction. Ethron could only hit one of them after all, and Pride was pretty sure he knew who it would be.

Sure enough Ethron swung his head towards Frederick. His mouth opened and an orange color lit up in the back. Then, just as the flames came out, they died. Water hit the fire, and Ethron's open mouth, steam going everywhere.

Ethron shook his head and looked up. Pride and Frederick did too. The Doctor and Peter were above them, large cauldron in hands.

"I told you," the Doctor said. "That's enough."

[I edited this chapter on my phone, so you'll have to excuse some issues. Don't write stories on your phone.]


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Ethron growled and spun around. With considerable effort, he lifted himself all the way up onto the main floor, and took off down the hall, breaking it a bit to do so.

"After him!" Frederick shouted.

He drew his sword and ran out, passing Merek on the way. It seemed the knight was still alive, and no longer on fire, but he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

"What? There's no reason to!" the Doctor called out to Frederick. She made a face. "Peter, Selim, come on."

The trio ran, following the Doctor. It seemed Ethron had forced the main entrance open, pieces of metal from the gateway flying everywhere. As soon as Ethron was out, he leapt into the air and spread his wings.

Wind slammed into the ground from the beat of his wings. It wasn't as bad as Arthur using his air alchemy, but at Ethron's size it was something.

He rose higher into the air, getting farther away. He was obviously still bigger than you'd expect for a creature in the sky, but it was getting hard to see he was a literal dragon.

Then there was a sound of a canon behind them. The sky lit up, a canon ball whistled by, and it obviously hit Ethron. Ethron roared again. There was another launch, another hit, and he fell from the sky and behind a hill, out of sight.

The three slowly turned around. A guard stood on top of the castle wall with a canon. It was the same one who stabbed the dragon in the eye earlier. Maybe he should be their top knight. Frederick was up there with him, so maybe he'd notice.

"There," Frederick said. "It's finally done. Dragon's are more trouble than they're worth."

"Should we check on him Doc?" Peter asked. He frowned when she didn't answer. "Doctor?"

The Doctor was looking off in the distance. She must've been pretty upset about this. She wasn't even telling Frederick and the guard off.

"Do what you like," she said. "There's no point though."

Pride sighed internally. "I'm sorry." He wasn't, but he didn't like the Doctor being like this, and it was easy enough to lie. "I know you wanted Ethron to live."

"No one needed to die here," the Doctor said. "We could've all lived. Ethron could've gone his separate way. But now he and Arthur are gone."

"Isn't it a good thing Arthur's gone?"

"Other than kidnapping you he hadn't done anything yet. That doesn't warrant being snapped in half. But, we should get moving." She turned to Peter. "It's been a pleasure meeting you at least."

Then with a nod to Peter, she turned and walked off. Didn't they have to go back inside to get to the TARDIS? Pride frowned, but followed her.

* * *

"Well, should we move on?" the Doctor asked, the two of them securely back in the TARDIS.

Pride had been surprised to find it the next hill over. Apparently, it had left the castle sometime, and the Doctor must've known.

He thought about her question. He wasn't sure it was a good idea to go hoping off to the next adventure yet, and his eyes kept falling on the phone. He hadn't called Mrs. Bradley in a while. Had it been a while for her? Would she worry he got killed by the military, or just think he was late from lunch?

Mrs. Bradley was the only human he actually enjoyed spending time with. At least without tremendous effort on his part. She'd been intriguing before the Promised Day. Then she'd taken him back afterwards, after Ed and the military told her at least part of the truth. Okay, but she thought he had no memories. He could still essentially be a replacement. Then she found out he'd never forgotten, and she still continued to raise him, hiding his identity from anyone else for years. And she wasn't good at hiding anything.

It was flabbergasting. She'd been pulled in Father's Philosopher's Stone on the Promised Day, along with everyone else in the country. It was very short lived, but hard for anyone alive at the time to forget, and she had to know he'd helped with that, for years. But she continued to see him as her son. Honestly when she first found he remembered, she seemed more upset he lied than the fact he was, from a human perspective, a monster who regularly killed people. True, she'd married Wrath, and he'd been pretty openly war mongering. But that was her husband, who was ruling the country. It was a different story for her son, and if he wanted to kill someone he was still not going to mention it.

But he was getting a bit off topic. The point was, the Doctor didn't know he was Pride, Mrs. Bradley didn't know anything about the Doctor, and the odds of this blowing up in his face were mounting. At the very least, he knew he couldn't do this for the rest of his life, unless his life got cut short like some of the people they'd encountered.

"I think I'd like to go home now. Not for good," he quickly elaborated. "I'd just like to tell my Mother where I've been."

"What, all of it?"

"Well, maybe not everything, but we can't say we've been at lunch this whole time."

"She might not want you to come with me, if she finds out," the Doctor pointed out.

"It'll be fine," Pride said, and he believed it with complete confidence.

The Doctor frowned. "Okay. I'll take us back. You might want to look a little less singed though."

Right. Being so close to a dragon all night would do that.


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

[Guess who's finally back. With a chapter I don't particularly like. It's easier in the long run if Mrs. Bradley has some idea what's going on, but not easy to write in the immediate sense. On the plus side, I did get to work on the rough draft in all that time off, by emailing it to myself essentially.]

There was a whirring noise as the TARDIS moved. The two stepped out, though Pride paused for a moment in the entrance. This was definitely home. He could recognize the house. They'd landed in the backyard. Mrs. Bradley's small garden sat along the back wall. The cat sat curled up on the steps. The house was large, probably a bit too large for just the two of them. It was so familiar, it was strange being back after over a week in space. Had anything changed since they left?

The Doctor turned around. "Selim? You alright?"

Pride quickly snapped out of it and nodded. "Coming!"

He ran after her to the back of the house, where the Doctor knocked on the door. It took a while, but eventually the door opened.

"Mother!" Pride exclaimed.

"Hello Mrs. Bradley," the Doctor greeted. She was smiling, but not very enthusiastic, not like when she smiled during their life threatening situations.

"Doctor. This is a surprise. I didn't think you'd be coming back with Selim." Her eyes darted between the two of them. "You're back a little late actually. . ."

She sounded a little concerned, but Pride was pretty sure if they'd come back on a completely different day her reaction would be more extreme, and since the sun was still up it couldn't be that late. Probably a good thing.

"Yeah there's a reason for that," the Doctor muttered, nodding.

Pride wasn't sure she even wanted Mrs. Bradley to hear it. No, it seemed he'd be filling her in.

"We wanted to talk to you," he said. "There's something I should show you first. Come on! This way."

He led Mrs. Bradley back to the TARDIS, though he still needed the Doctor to open the door. Mrs. Bradley stood in the entrance, staring up at the counsel room with wide eyes, hand over her mouth.

"Well, here we are," the Doctor said, standing in the center of the room with her hands in her pockets. "Welcome to my home."

"It's certainly . . . something," Mrs. Bradley said.

"Isn't it great?" Pride asked. "The Doctor lives here, and she travels around. She says she's an alien."

"I am an alien."

"And . . . how far back does this home go?" Mrs. Bradley asked, peering down one of the halls.

"Oh no one knows really," the Doctor said. She started down the hall, and the other two didn't have much choice except to follow. "The rooms we need just tend to be nearby. We have bedrooms here." She pushed open some doors. One of them was Pride's room, but the others seemed to just be unused bedrooms. "Kitchen here." They entered the familiar kitchen and dinning area. "Down that way is a library." She gestured to the door on the right. "We've got a pool and a movie room too. Though I'm not sure where. . ." She paused and waved a hand in the air, clearly losing focus.

"Doctor, is that important right now?" Pride asked, trying to bring her back.

"Right. I suppose not."

"Why are you telling me this?" Mrs. Bradley asked. "It seems to be some sort of secret."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well not really. I kept it a secret because I was fairly certain there were alien invaders around, and I didn't want to tip them off. Normally it's not something I bother hiding."

Well that was good to know, but it hadn't actually answered Mrs. Bradley's question.

"We wanted to let you know, because I've been spending time with the Doctor. You know that invasion she mentioned? We stopped it. And we traveled to another planet."

Technically, they'd traveled to a few other planets, but he was going to keep it simple for now. They hadn't been gone long, and she was already looking overwhelmed without introducing time travel.

"I see." Mrs. Bradley closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"You alright?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes. Sorry, it's just, a lot." She lifted her head again. "If you don't mind Doctor, I'd like to talk with Selim alone now."

The Doctor nodded. "Totally understandable."

"Come on Mother, I'll show you my room."

Pride took her hand and led her back down the hall. They entered his room, where he shut the door. He'd added a chair to his room at some point. Turned out that was probably a good thing.

Pride sat down on the bed, gradually shedding the Selim persona. He could've switched a lot faster, but he made it less abrupt for Mrs. Bradley's sake. She took a seat in his chair. They were quiet for a moment.

"So was that true?" Mrs. Bradley asked. "You saved the planet and have been . . . traveling?"

She sounded far too hopeful about the saving the planet thing. There was never much choice, and he mostly just held things for the Doctor. He nodded anyway, though he thought his expression made it clear, saving planets was not something he was in this for.

"And you've been enjoying it?"

"Yes. It's amazing."

"It sounds dangerous."

"It is," Pride admitted.

"You can see why I might be concerned by that?"

"I've dealt with worse."

That was stretching the truth. It wasn't exactly easy being a homunculus. But he'd been harder to kill, more powerful, and actually knew what was going on.

"And that should stop me from worrying?" Mrs. Bradley asked.

"It should," he muttered.

But it wouldn't. He knew that.

"I wouldn't be a very good mother if it did," she said. "You know, even when you go out alone at home I worry sometimes. I wonder if you'll just leave someday. Or that someone from the military's taken you away. I could live with the former. The latter. . ."

Pride found both ideas preposterous, but he tried not to let it show. Mrs. Bradley had always seemed easy to read, probably why the military never suspected she was keeping secrets, and he could tell she was genuinely worried.

"You don't have to worry about the Amestrian military. They've all but given up, and I can protect myself."

"I'm sure you can," Mrs. Bradley said. "But I wanted you to know, so you know how important the next question is. Why do you enjoy this so much?"

Pride tipped his head back, and tried to think of way to explain that was honest, but also not too insulting. "I've been in Amestris my whole life," he explained quietly. "This is the first time I've seen anything outside it in person, and the first time in years I've seen something new that was genuinely surprising." He was pretty sure Mrs. Bradley didn't know how old he was, so he wasn't going to specify how many years. Being with the Doctor made him actually think, presented challenges, but it was hard to word that in a way that wasn't an insult. "I've seen new planets and species. And I don't have to. . ."

"Go on," Mrs. Bradley gently said.

Pride made a face. "I don't have to act. I mean, I do around the Doctor. But I'm never going to see these other people again." He remembered the worry she'd expressed before. "And you don't have to worry. I'm not running off with her forever. I came back now, didn't I?"

He could easily at least visit Mrs. Bradley during these adventures, especially if less time passed for her. And while he might not have much in the way of long-term planning, he knew he couldn't just travel with the Doctor for the rest of his life, the next sixty or so years.

Mrs. Bradley had been listening intently the whole time. She nodded as it became clear he was done. "I see. Well, I wouldn't want to keep this from you if you're happy." He smiled. He'd had a feeling. "But, I would like you to keep in contact, let me know what's going on. Also, I'd like to go on a trip with you and the Doctor. Just one. I'd like to see what they're like."

Pride really, really hoped they could manage a trip that wasn't death defying for her.

"Okay," he said, trying to hide that little worry. "Let's go talk to the Doctor."

[We won't actually be seeing the trip they take with Mrs. Bradley. If I haven't run out of steam, I may write it when the story is over.]


	31. Chapter 31

Chapter 31

[Hello all. Chapter 30 is a real chapter now, in case you missed that.]

Well the trip with Mrs. Bradley could've gone worse. The Doctor had taken them to a beach, on their home planet. It had started out peaceful, despite the Doctor's misgivings, until it turned out they had gone back in time, and there were dinosaurs wandering around. Still, that was less dangerous than some of their other adventures, and Mrs. Bradley seemed to have had a genuinely good time. The Doctor even offered to take her along more often. Pride wouldn't have minded. It was fun. But she politely declined, something about being too old to do this all the time.

Mrs. Bradley and Pride finished saying their goodbyes. Mrs. Bradley left, Pride closed the door after waving, and the Doctor tried to take off. The whirring noise started, but then the sound spiraled into silence, the lights flickering and dying. There were just a few glowing lights still in the counsel, and not much else.

"What happened?" Pride asked quietly. The sound of him and the Doctor breathing had been a bit much.

"Something's in the TARDIS," the Doctor explained. "It's shut down to protect us."'

"Should we go back out with Mother?"

The Doctor shook her head. "We can't. The TARDIS did start to move before shutting down, but she won't land anywhere now. We're floating in the time vortex. And there's no going out in that."

"So what do we do?"

"Get whatever it is off the ship. I have a device that'll can the ship, but I need to get it working again." She picked up what seemed like a safe box and rattled it. "Don't suppose you could get me some tools?"

(Break)

Pride shuffled around the bathroom, shinning a flashlight into the cabinets, and trying not to wonder why the Doctor kept her tiny blow torch in here. Did the Doctor even use the bathroom? For its intended purpose that was. He knew he and his siblings had rarely needed to, except Wrath, and the Doctor wasn't human. But he'd never asked what the specifics of being a Time Lord entailed. Maybe he'd do so some day. Children frequently asked a million questions. They had a poor understanding of shutting up.

Ah ha.

Pride pulled the blow torch out of the cabinet under the sink. It was small and resembled a pipe. Pride wouldn't have considered this a blow torch on Amestris, but this was the TARDIS.

He got up, and did a double take at the mirror. As much as he normally didn't like looking at it, he could've sworn his reflection hadn't moved, while he clearly had. Most humans would assume they were imagining things in this situation, but they'd also assumed they were imagining things if they saw his shadows move. It turned out he didn't need to be nearly as careful with them as he'd initially thought. So the question was, what did he do about this mirror? Touching it seemed like really bad idea.

_Do you have to do anything? The Doctor knows something's in the TARDIS that isn't supposed to be, and plans to get rid of it. Just keep an eye on the mirror as you leave._

With only two eyes, that meant walking out backwards, but it was better than being taken by surprise.

Sure enough, he had been correct. His 'reflection' wasn't behaving as it should. It was still there as he backed out of view. In fact, it leaned back to see him better and smiled. Not reassuring, though the smile was extremely awkward, like the being didn't quite know how smiling worked.

"Wait. Pride."

And that made him stop. "You know who I am?"

"You are Pride the Arrogant, the 'child' of the Dwarf in the Flask, oldest of seven. I came from your world after all. I've had lots of time to watch things from the mirrors."

"Don't expect me to be impressed."

"You? Impressed? Wouldn't dream of it."

Oh he could be impressed every so often, like when the Doctor brought them to their first foreign planet. It just didn't happen often. It would be hard enough to surprise someone over three hundred years old, much less impress them.

"Then why are we talking?" Pride asked.

"I'm curious why you still cling to being Pride so hard." It went on before he could respond. "You're completely free. Your family isn't around, and with the Doctor you could go literally anywhere. But you just keep acting like you always have, even though it seems you're pretty miserable now."

Pride gritted his teeth and wondered what would happen if he shattered the mirror.

"I am Pride. And I'll take being miserable over the alternatives." He scoffed. "This was a waste of time."

"For you maybe. You see, every moment I'm here I can draw strength from the TARDIS. So thanks for taking your time. It really helps me out."


	32. Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Pride ran back into the counsel room. "Doctor! Doctor I've got the blow torch!"

"Thanks but . . . I don't think we'll be needing it anymore."

Pride stopped as he reached the entry way. There was a yellow glowing ball in the center of the room. It was decidedly not fire, just an orb of light that was getting larger. It would flare out in sections and then fade back.

"What's that?"

"The source of our power failure. This is alive, an intangible being of some sort. And we've made a mistake. The TARDIS shouldn't have put us in the time vortex. This being was harmless before. If I had to guess, I'd say it feeds on the energy in the time vortex."

"What does that mean?" Pride asked, feeling frustrated that he genuinely didn't know.

The flaring light above them seemed to be getting faster.

"Alright, this ship is seriously losing its touch," Porter said.

Wait, where had he come from? Pride had never seen him closer to the entrance than the kitchen, but it sounded like he was right behind them. Pride could see Porter's faint red glow out of the corner of his eye. It was getting warmer on one side of him too.

The Doctor didn't bother responding to his statement. "Get down!" she shouted.

Pride dropped to the ground, not bothering to question it. Above him he could see Porter was more skeptical, but his eyes got wide as the light in the room flared up. He squatted down with the other two. The control room shook, light shooting out in all directions before dying down. He could feel something pass over him, but it didn't feel that hot, like light typically would.

He shoved himself up as the explosion died down. There was now a figure in the counsel room. It was hard to make out many details, since they were glowing, but they seemed very nondescript anyway.

"Who are you?" the Doctor said, getting up and stepping forward.

The figure passed, blinking a few times like they hadn't thought of that. "I haven't had a name before." Pride tensed up. That was the voice from the mirror, all be it a bi more echoing. "I suppose you could call me the Creator."

"Well Creator, I think you should leave. Get off this ship," the Doctor said.

The Creator tilted their head like they were considering it, but that was obviously not the case. "I suppose I could," they agreed. "Now that I finally have enough energy to leave that mirror with a proper form. The question is . . . why would I do that, when I can continue ripping time energy out of your ship and growing more powerful?"

"Well, she asked nicely," Porter said.

He stepped in front of the other two, mechanical arm pointing at the Creator.

"Porter, no!" the Doctor shouted.

Unsurprisingly, he ignored her and fired one of his blasts off. The Creator disappeared, just sort of winked out, before he could hit them. Instead his blast tore through the counsel room, and parts of the ceiling fell.

Porter yelled and jumped forward as one such piece fell towards him. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Pride scrambled back. The rubble they'd dodged hit the counsel, making a corner of it buckle, with a few sparks flying out. Another piece of rubble hit the entryway to the room, effectively locking the Doctor and Pride into the hall.

"Look what he did to my ship!" the Doctor cried.

"What are we going to do now?" Pride asked.

"I . . . I don't know," the Doctor said quietly, losing a lot of her gusto.

Pride, meanwhile, felt like his body just . . . stopped for a moment in surprise. "You don't know? But you're the Doctor. You always have a plan! You always win!"

"Is that it what it looks like to you? That's not what it is, not what it's about. I travel through time and space. I help out where I can. Most times I don't even know where I'm going much less have a plan. And I certainly don't win. But things would be worse if I didn't try."

Pride sputtered for a moment, trying to stay in character while the Doctor seemingly gave up, or at the very least wanted him to believe all his assumptions were wrong.

"Then-then you have to try now. What will we do if you can't stop the Creator?"

"Oh they'll keep taking in energy until they're an all powerful being, and then they'll probably kill us." She sighed. "Come on. They haven't left the ship. We'll go find them before that can happen."


	33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

The Doctor and Pride wandered farther into the TARDIS. The Doctor had a flashlight in her mouth, which in some places was the only source of light. She also had the sonic screwdriver in her hand.

Pride meanwhile, trailed behind her. He was back to trying to plan himself, unless the Doctor said she had something.

"If the TARDIS is alive, couldn't you get her help with this?" he asked.

The Doctor shook her head, moving the flashlight to her hands so she could speak. "The TARDIS is helping us. Or she thinks she is. That's why she put us in the time vortex. But now she's shut down and Porter destroyed part of the counsel. I doubt we could get much from her. The TARDIS is always keeping us safe, we'll just have to save her this time."

"Oh."

Pride couldn't think of any specific times the TARDIS had helped them, besides getting them places, but that hadn't been the main point.

Suddenly, a wall came sliding out. Pride jumped back to avoid being hit, and found himself separated from the Doctor. This was getting old.

"Hey!" Pride shouted. He knocked his fists against the wall. "Hey let me in!"

"I can't!" the Doctor called back. "It's jammed."

"Can't you use the sonic screwdriver?"

"Obviously not!" the Doctor shouted. She sounded more exasperated than usual. "Okay. We've passed a few doors before. There's probably a way we can meet back up. You go back and try to go right, I'll try to go left. Come back if that doesn't work and we'll go the other direction."

"Right."

Pride turned around and started back down the hall, trying doors as he went. The first two were locked and the third didn't have a knob at all, or any button that suggested it slid open. Then the fourth door opened of its own accord, light coming out.

_This is a bad idea._

Even as he thought it, he stepped inside. It was certainly bright, and the ground beneath him didn't feel terribly stable. He put a hand over his eyes and squinted out, determined to get a better idea of this room.

Turned out calling it a room was a stretch. The light inside was the sun, or at least a very convincing facsimile thereof. He knew he was still inside, but he couldn't see any walls, or ceiling, and the floor below him was dark sand. There were a few cactus and other scraggly plants that did well in these conditions. So, he had essentially stepped into a desert.

He had just taken all that in when the door shut behind him. Because of course it did. This had been a trap from the start.

He turned around, getting a view of the door and the only wall in this place. "Could you let me back in?" he asked, speaking to the TARDIS.

There was no response. He shrugged. Worth a try, regardless of what the Doctor had said.

A moment later, a familiar voice rang out. "Sorry little homunculus. But I had to get you out of the way for a while."

Well it was nice to finally be called a homunculus again, but there was another thing. "You really should know little homunculus is a bit redundant."

"And Pride the Arrogant isn't?"

Pride waved a hand dismissively. "Humans are naturally a bit slow. We have to make sure they get it."

"I'd love to keep arguing with you, but I should really go now. Enjoy your stay."

And then it was quiet again. Pride could see a window set in the door, but a quick alchemy test confirmed he wouldn't be getting through that way. He sighed and turned away. Maybe there was another exit around somewhere, or something he could use to blast the door down. Wouldn't that be a sight?

He looked out at the desert, the sand rising and falling in slight hills, and let out a sigh. This would be better if he could just wait for the Doctor to fix things like she always did, but she didn't have a plan, so he wasn't about to wait around to get rescued. He could handle himself.

With that thought in mind, he started off, further into the desert.

* * *

The Doctor wandered around the TARDIS. She honestly wasn't in a huge hurry. True, she had to find Selim, and get the Creator out of the TARDIS, but to do that she needed to know how. And so far she didn't have any ideas.

The Creator seemed perfectly happy to sit and eat the Time Vortex, and the Doctor didn't strong arm her way against her opponents at the best of times. Which meant she'd have to trick the mirror being into leaving somehow.

She was broken from these thoughts when she realized she was no longer in a hall. This was a room. It was a living room sort of space, sofas, a coffee table, and a piano. She'd sort of known this room was in the TARDIS, but she didn't really frequent it.

There was a figure on the piano. Well, sometimes there was an unmistakable humanoid figure. Sometimes the image fizzled out, leaving a sort of glowing cloud that looked like it could be blown away if she had a fan on her. The figure didn't seem bothered by their lack of object permanence, smiling.

"The Creator," the Doctor said. "I've heard of beings living in the mirror before."

"Calling it living is a bit generous," the Creator said. Their voice warbled out with their image, but the Doctor got the idea. "All you can do is sit and watch the world go round without you. I've been stuck as a reflection on the planet for hundreds of years. But now, I'm finally free."

"And I could've lived with it if you stopped there, but you're endangering us all."

"Could you have? I'm from Pride's world originally, but I've seen you too. I seriously doubt you would've let me go after threatening your precious TARDIS."

"He's not Pride anymore."

"He most certainly is. And you should really be able to tell. Honestly, he's taking this whole thing far too well. And does he actually emote? Enthusiasm is not an emotion by itself," the Creator quickly specified. "I think, you're just seeing what you want to see."

"And I should believe you? You took over my ship."

"So you should believe him instead? You're not even believing him actually, because it's not like you've asked him. You're just believing yourself. People only slander their debater when they have no good argument."

That was when the TARDIS shook. There was the very muffled sound of an explosion coming from down the hall, close to the entrance.

"What was that?" the Creator asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor said quietly, though she could guess.

"You d-you don't know?" the Creator sputtered indignantly. "This is your machine. How could you possibly not know?"

"This machine, as you call it, has a mind of her own. Thank you. And you took over. If anyone should know what's going on it's you."

The Creator glared at her, but the Doctor was unmoved. She didn't even bother to explain that was probably Porter, trying to escape with the defenses so weakened. Not that it would do him much good. If he managed to open the doors he'd just be sucked out. Wait. . .

"Well it's been fun, but enough of this," the Creator said.

They were trying, and somewhat failing, to shrug it off. Then they put their palm out, and light came out of it, taking shape. It was a tall rounded shape, with a dome at the top.

"EXTERMINATE!"


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Pride hadn't found a way out of the desert room yet. Also, it was hot, and sand was filling up his shoes. He couldn't do much about that, but he could do something about the need for water.

He walked up to a cactus and clapped his hands together. Part of the cactus reformed into a bowl, and filled with water from the plant. Desert plants could typically store a lot of water after all.

He took a drink. This wasn't so bad. Actually, he could see something shinning off in the distance. The last door had been metal, so it stood to reason, this might be another exit.

* * *

It seemed the Creator really lived up to their new name. The Doctor couldn't see them properly anymore, but she knew they were moving away. In the meantime, the semi-formed dalek could be a problem. It fired. The Doctor dove out of the way of the blast. It was a good thing that dalek was only partially formed, or that might not have worked. The dalek briefly flickered out after that, but it was recovering.

The Doctor took off down the hall while she still could. This was bad. The dalek obviously hadn't been real when the Creator formed it. Unfortunately, it seemed to be getting more real with each second, making it harder to deal with. Most of the TARDIS walls were protected against dalek blasts, but she was not.

Actually, that did give her an idea.

The Doctor ran down a hall, parallel to the one she and Selim had come up through. The dalek was following her, but it seemed to have noticed its shaky existence, and was using its gun sparingly. Good.

The Doctor passed a few doors, before stopping in front of a silver metal one.

"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED," the dalek said, rolling closer. It was at a good enough angle for the Doctor's plan to work. Now it just needed to fire.

"By what, the great pepper pot?" the Doctor asked. She tilted her head, as if assessing it. "Glowing does not improve your look."

"EXTERMINATE!"

The Doctor flopped to the ground. The blast hit the door instead, with enough power to knock it off its hinges. But the door was also designed to defend against dalek attacks, so the beam bounced back. It hit the dalek, which didn't have proper shields yet. The dalek blasted to pieces, and disappeared into fizzling light.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor turned around. "Oh. Sorry Selim. I didn't know you were in there. Are you alright?"

"I think so."

The Doctor looked at him. He was in a desert room. It seemed he'd fallen over when the door came crashing in. Despite that, he seemed okay, getting back to his feet without much reaction.

That was a thing. What was it the Creator had said? About him not emoting much?

_Some people emote differently. And if he is just Selim, and you go probing into things, it could make everything worse._

"Doctor, why do you have a desert in your house?" Selim asked. Whoever he was, he was oblivious to the doubts in her head.

_Why don't you call him Pride? Just once. If he's confused you can pass it off as one of the many people you used to know. No harm done._ The Doctor smiled. It was not her most convincing expression. "The TARDIS likes to create ambiance sometimes, but never mind that now. The important part is that you're safe. Now we should get moving." She turned partially back towards the hall, only really seeing him from the corner of her eyes. _Just do it._ She swallowed thickly. "Come on Pride."

He dropped his head. The instant change in posture was subtle, but did its job in making him look older. The best the Doctor could describe it was that it suddenly looked like he was carrying more weight. He smiled. It resembled a shark planning to eat a fish. Yes, the Creator could say it should've been obvious, but there was a big difference between how he presented as Selim versus Pride.

"So, you figured it out," he said. "How did you know?"

"I didn't." That wiped the smug look off his face. "Not until just now. So . . . thanks for that."

Pride took a deep breath, regaining some of his composure. "What are you going to do now?" he asked quietly.

The Doctor looked at him. He was clearly waiting for something, his hands twitching closer together. So aside from herself, the TARDIS currently housed Pride, Porter, and the Creator. Just great.

"Right now, I'm going to get the Creator off my ship." She was aware her voice was getting sharper as she spoke. Good. She was angry.

"I thought you didn't know how."

"I thought of a plan, about a minuet ago." It had started forming around the same time as the dalek. "Come on."

[Hey, we finally got to this scene. Now that that's done, something I should mention. Remember how I said this story might be broken into multiple fics? I'm planning to tell it in three fics. The second one is going to be relatively short, but the breaks all make sense. This arc is the last one in the first fic. So I'll be ending this and starting part two pretty soon. I'll keep following the pattern of posting three chapters a week, so the second one should be out almost immediately, and should be easy to find with how few Doctor Who, FMA crossovers there are. I know there are risks to breaking up the story, but I clearly do what I want.]


	35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The Doctor had thought of a plan. Of course she had. She always did. Still, Pride knew enough about these adventures to know his life was going to be in danger before the end of it. And this time would be worse than usual. The Doctor would surely be less inclined to help him live now that she knew. It was obvious she was still upset. She was tense, staring straight ahead, and walking faster than usual. Apparently, when they weren't in immediate danger, she walked slower for 'Selim'. He quickened his own pace and hid any of his own reactions. He wasn't going to let the Doctor get to him.

They reached the control room. Porter was still inside. He was standing by the door, blasting it with his arm's weapon. Pride knew the damage it could do, but it sure wasn't doing anything against the door. That stood the same as ever.

As soon as Pride and the Doctor entered the room, his human eye zeroed in on them. He spun around, arm pointed towards them. Both dropped down the floor as a blast went over their heads. It hit the wall behind them, blasting it to bits.

"Right. I've always wanted a bigger hall," the Doctor said, looking back at the damage it had caused.

"**You will let me out now**," Porter said. His glowing mechanical eye looked down on them, while his flesh one seemed unfocused.

"I will not," the Doctor replied.

"**You will open the doors, or I will destroy you and your machine.**" He raised his metal arm, as it reshaped into a weapon again.

Pride saw the Doctor tense up. She really didn't like people threatening the TARDIS. But she kept surprisingly good control as she spoke.

"Sorry, can I speak to the Ferman please?" the Doctor asked. That must've been the flesh species she was talking about before.

Porter actually took a half step back and looked confused. "**We are** one in the same. **But okay**, I'll humor you," he said. Pride noticed his human voice had a lot more tone than his mechanical echoing one, which sounded neutral most of the time. Porter dropped slightly, putting his hands on his knees to lean closer towards the Doctor. "What could you possibly have to say to me, that could change my mind?"

"Well for one thing, we're still in the Time Vortex," the Doctor explained. She stood up and brushed herself off, though there wasn't much there so it was mostly performative. "You know what happens to people who get sucked into that. For another, if you destroy this ship, you'll have to fight the being who's absorbing the time energy. And third, you know me. You're Ferman side knows me better than the mechanical one, so that was a good reason to bring you back." The Doctor circled around him. Porter spun on the spot slightly, to follow her. "I know you're frustrated being here. But tell me Porter, do you really think you can strong arm your way out?"

Porter blinked at her a few times. Pride could see both sides of his face making slightly different expressions, but apparently coming to the same conclusion. He gritted his teeth, the metal ones making a screeching sound.

"Damn it! I hate it when you're right!"

"You must hate it a lot of the time then," the Doctor said. "Now, how about you help me get that rubble off the controls?"

"And why would I do that?"

"I need the controls stuck under that rock, and you're strong enough to just lift it off."

"We're still enemies. I can't accomplish anything by attacking you, but I sure as Hell am not about to help you."

Pride sighed. This was going nowhere. The Doctor had said she had a plan. If she needed the controls for it, well he could help with that. Ignoring the two of them as they bickered, he walked right between them towards the controls. He was short enough they didn't even seem to realize. Then he clapped his hands and pressed them against the rock currently resting on the controls, the one Porter had accidentally brought down from the ceiling. With a few alchemy sparks it split in half, falling off.

He turned back to the other two. The Doctor looked like she'd just put something together. Porter, who had likely never even heard of alchemy, looked shocked, and confused. That expression on his split face was pretty good.

"You had a plan Doctor?"

"Yes." The Doctor walked over. She pressed a button and pulled a lever. There was a banging noise further down in the TARDIS. "I'm deleting rooms," the Doctor explained. "If a room is deleted while you're in it, you go straight to this room. Safety measure. Anything I get rid of the TARDIS can make again, and I don't think we really wanted the desert room anyway."

"We have a desert room?" Porter asked.

"Not anymore!" the Doctor announced cheerfully.

"But, won't that bring the Creator straight to us?" Pride asked.

"That's the idea," the Doctor agreed.

Porter looked at her with a frown, then turned to Pride and pointed to the Doctor, questioning look in his eyes. Well, his human eye at least.

Pride just shook his head, and made sure he wasn't standing by any entry ways.


	36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

A flash of light came barreling down the corridor. It swirled, turning into flames as it did so. Doing a very quick headcount of everyone's abilities, Pride clapped his hands together, put them against the floor, and brought up a barrier against the fire. The room heated up, but the three inside it were fine.

The Creator came into sight. Porter blasted Pride's barrier. The barrier burst into pieces, sending rubble flying around the room. The blast also continued towards the hall, and the entryway the Creator was standing in. The Creator quickly whipped up some sort of futuristic shield. Porter's weapon still shoved them back a bit, but they weren't directly hit by that or the rubble flying around the room.

Scowling, the Creator crafted a bucket above them, swinging from one of the TARDIS' crystal formations. The Creator had now stopped glowing and was looking kind of transparent, but with a snap of their fingers the bottom of the bucket opened up and lava began pouring out.

Porter yelped. Considering Porter seemed to only deal in the offensive, Pride quickly created a dome over them with alchemy. He hoped the floor of the TARDIS, where he'd scooped the material from, was designed to withstand this. The answer was sort of. The dome was holding up, but turning red in some places, and the space under it was heating up. Pride was sweating a lot, the air hazy around them. But it was better than being hit by literal lava.

Porter launched another attack at the Creator. They didn't even try to deflect this time. They jumped to the side, sliding along the ground and scraping themselves up.

Now Pride and Porter had to move. A bit of the dome above them fell to the floor between them, boiling up.

Change in plan then. Pride clapped his hands and created a sort of trench in the ground. The lava flowed into that instead of burning up the dome and the floor, so Pride and Porter could scramble out.

The Creator had gotten back up, glaring at them venomously. Despite the scrapes on the Creator, it was honestly hard to say who was winning this fight. They made multiple spears appear out of thin air, reminding Pride of the ones Edward Elric created. The spears then seemingly launched themselves at Pride and Porter.

Porter blasted the ones coming towards him to bits. Pride, who was running out of floor to work with, ducked behind the controls for cover. The spears changed trajection in mid-flight and turned back towards Pride. Not quite normal spears then. Pride transmuted one of the control panels into a shield. When one of the spears got stuck in it, he pulled it out and flung it back at the Creator.

Porter chuckled. "Not bad."

It was quite good if anyone asked Pride, but one spear was easy enough to dodge. The Creator didn't even create anything to do so, just stepped to the side.

"If you three are quite done."

Suddenly they all stopped and turned to the Doctor, still standing by the controls. Pride had honestly almost forgotten she was there. But perhaps that had been the point. Right, she'd said she had a plan. Now would be a great time.

"Are you ready to leave yet?" the Doctor asked.

The Creator shook their head, looking at the ceiling. "Haven't we established I'm not going to be done? I'm eating time energy."

"Yes. Nice, easy time energy, perfectly modified by the TARDIS for travel through the five dimensions. But, I was thinking, if you like time energy so much, why stop there? You should have some more."

The Doctor snapped her fingers. The main doors opened. Instantly some sort of force was trying to pull them all out. It was like opening the doors in space. The Doctor grabbed the controls. Porter's metal leg stuck itself to the floor, and Pride could hear engines whir as he kept himself there.

Pride himself was lifted into the air and started whizzing towards the door. He grabbed one of those hexagon frameworks outside the crystals as he past. It wasn't the best solution; he could only hold on so tightly and for so long after all. But he couldn't see anything else to break himself with.

The Creator was just as surprised. But being the Creator, they created their own pole sticking out of the ground just before the exit. It had handles to grip, and as Pride watched they created little straps around their wrist, so it wouldn't matter if they let go.

It would certainly matter if Pride let go. He looked at his own hands in worry. They had turned white and slick, but what was he supposed to do about that? The Doctor surely wouldn't have any interest in helping him this time. In fact, considering who he was in the room with, he wouldn't be surprised if she wanted to get rid of all of them. He couldn't use alchemy without letting go. But, if he did slip away, he might have time to make something to keep him in place before being whisked out the door.

Sure enough, a few moments later, his fingers slipped away from the framework and he was flung away again. He clapped his hands together, just as an arm grabbed him. It was hard and metallic, and hotter than any automail. Well, maybe when automail was first getting off the ground it could overheat like this.

"Got you," Porter growled.

"Enough," the Doctor said, looking directly at the Creator. "You aren't wanted here. You can go."

She flung something at them. Pride wasn't sure what. It looked like a toaster. The Creator's eyes grew wide, and they and their pole fizzled. With the pole gone, they were sucked out the door instantly, and the Doctor finally closed the TARDIS.

Porter tipped forward, with all the power he'd been using to stay inside. Pride hit the floor, now that gravity was once again the strongest force in the room.

He got back up, brushing himself off.

Porter steadied himself. "Well that was fun," he said. "Now how about you let me out?"

The Doctor smiled, but it was a pitying way, and Pride was so glad it wasn't directed at him.

"Porter, I know how you work. You've used too much energy. If you fire that weapon again you'll burn your flesh side up."

The Doctor had a point. The glow in Porter's metal side had faded considerably, but his skin was turning red, especially where it attached to the metal, and he was trembling slightly.

"You planned this," Porter said quietly. He spoke louder for the next sentence. "That's why you let us keep fighting. You wanted to wear me out."

"It was a factor," the Doctor admitted.

Porter gnashed his teeth, the metal ones making a screeching noise as they did so. He didn't fire his weapon. Instead he turned his arm back into a fist, and swung it at the Doctor. The Doctor got his arm and yanked him, flipping him right over onto his back.

Pride was aware he was making a stupid stupefied expression, and he tried to correct it. But still, he'd never seen the Doctor actually get into a fight before. He didn't know she could.

Apparently, Porter hadn't either. "What the fuck?" he said, grabbing his metal shoulder with a grimace.

"Venusian Aikido," the Doctor explained. "Always handy in a tight spot."

She grabbed Porter's shirt collar and somehow managed to drag him into the hall. She came back into the control room, and the door closed behind Porter.


	37. Chapter 37

Chapter 37

[So this is the last chapter in this fic. I'll be posting its sequel Wednesday, just to get it out as soon as reasonably possible.]

"Does Mrs. Bradley know?"

The other side of the room was quiet for a moment. "Yes."

Then the lights flickered back on, and she could see the whole room. The Doctor moved to the controls. It was quiet except for a few muttered apologies of her own to the TARDIS. They'd done a number on her, and she'd have to fix up the control room, which meant no one could be in it. But first they should get out of the time vortex.

The Doctor watched Pride out of the corner of her eyes. He was sitting down. He was doing his best to look nonpulsed, but he wasn't making eye contact, and his fingers were fidgeting slightly. Now that the Doctor knew he could do circle-less alchemy, that made sense.

She frowned. She really, really wished he hadn't remembered. She had other companions to travel with, but everyone needed a break sometimes, especially if she could reliably get them home and back. She didn't like traveling alone during those times. And she'd liked travelling with Selim.

But Pride was an entirely different matter. She'd gone back in Amestris' history while he'd been knocked out after the ice incident, and while he recovered from being sick, just to see Pride first hand. She knew plenty of people who had done worse. She herself had done worse. But it was important to remember he was limited to one country on a low technology planet.

The fact that she believed his act, that she wanted to believe his act, also made it worse. Who knew what he'd gotten up to when they were separated? What she did know, was that these last few adventures with him hadn't gone so well, and in retrospect, any time he helped she'd had to hold his hand and drag him along through the whole thing. She couldn't do that constantly. And she couldn't trust him.

The TARDIS stopped moving. They'd reached their destination.

"Where are we?" Pride asked.

"I'm sending you home," the Doctor replied.

With a snap of her fingers, the doors opened. The TARDIS had taken them to the library where she first picked Pride up. They were in the parking lot behind the building.

Pride stared out the door for a moment before turning back to her. It was the first time he'd made eye contact since he'd revealed himself.

"No. No I haven't done anything." The Doctor gave him a look. He'd done lots of things. Did he want them alphabetically or chronologically? Pride waved a hand. "You know what I mean. I've done what you told me, haven't I? I helped you save people." He sounded slightly incredulous at the notion.

"Because it was that or tell me the truth," the Doctor pointed out. "And as a general lesson on trust, the longer you hold onto a secret the worse it is when you're found out."

"And I could trust you?" Pride asked. His voice was getting a touch more hysterical. "You erased the cybermen's memory. I thought you'd at least kick me out, and I was right. You let Porter stay."

"I kept Porter in here and away from damaging the universe." Being trapped in the TARDIS wasn't a great fate, and apparently he knew it since he didn't try to argue that point.

"You can't send me back there!" Pride shouted, losing all pretense of being composed. There were worse things that could happen to him. He'd acknowledged that just a few moments ago. But he seemed to have forgotten now. "I'm not going back. It's not my home. You can't-"

"I'm not having a debate with you!" the Doctor snapped. That got him to shut up. And as she moved closer he took a few steps back, seemingly without noticing. "You're going back to Amestris. I'm telling you to go. You've traveled with me. If I say you're going, do you really think you have another choice?"

She wasn't sure how she'd force him to leave, other than pick him up and plop him outside, but he didn't need to know that.

And clearly he hadn't figured it out. Pride stepped onto the entry way. He wobbled on the uneven floor and tipped back, falling out of the TARDIS. Taking the opportunity, the Doctor shut the door and went back to the controls. She could hear him outside, still shouting, but she did her best to tune him out, as she had the TARDIS take her someplace else. No idea where. The TARDIS could decide.

* * *

Pride stood outside the library, staring at the spot where the TARDIS had just been. He'd tried to open the door almost as soon as the Doctor had shut it, but he'd stepped back when it started making that whirring noise. He wasn't sure what would happen if he was holding it while it teleported away after all. There was now no evidence it had been there at all. He was just standing in the lot behind the library, the sun setting. He couldn't even be sure how long he'd been gone, if it was still the same day or not.

He was Pride. He wasn't supposed to have unnecessary human emotions, didn't need them. As per usual, this body seemed to disagree. He wanted to scream, or cry, or maybe laugh hysterically. He made a short sound that was somehow a cross between all three, then the reactions mercifully cancelled each other out.

Numbly, he turned, and started walking back towards home. Luckily, no one else seemed to be out. No audience to worry about. He also noticed it was cooler than when he'd left. So maybe it wasn't the same day. Didn't really matter. He'd find out for sure soon enough.

He reached the house, knocking on the door. A few moments later, Mrs. Bradley opened it. She looked down in surprise. Pride managed a smile. It was a bad one, and he was pretty sure they both knew it, but he really had missed her, so at least it was somewhat sincere.

"Hello Mother. I'm back."

Mrs. Bradley dropped lower and pulled him into a hug, one which he returned after a moment. "Oh Selim. It's good to see you. I've missed you so much. I didn't know you'd be coming back today."

_Neither did I_. But he wasn't getting into that standing outside the house about ten minuets after it happened. "I wanted to surprise you."

"Well you certainly did," Mrs. Bradley said, sounding amused. She pulled away. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. Thinking it over a bit more, because he clearly wasn't most people's definition of 'fine', he added, "Better than usual. Can we go in now?"

"Of course."

Mrs. Bradley took his hand, and he let her lead him back into their home.


End file.
